


Two Storms

by Tomboy13



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Classic Horror Movie Mistakes, Dani Clayton is a lot braver than people think, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Hannah and Owen are idiots in love, Mentions of injury/blood/illness, Non-Traditional Ghost Story, Protective Jamie, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:27:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomboy13/pseuds/Tomboy13
Summary: Its an idyllic summer in 1987, and amidst the sprawling grounds of Bly Manor both Jamie and Dani are trying to find the courage to make the first move. Then the storm arrives, bringing the ghosts of the past with it...
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Comments: 71
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

It was late summer, and the sun rose honey slow, its light oozing between the pines and over the grass, glittering tantalisingly on the dew. Jamie breathed deeply as she climbed from her van, shivering slightly in the still-cool air. It looked like it would be another hot one, but now at 6:30am on a quiet August morning, the breeze made her skin prickle, carrying the promise of the autumn to come with it.

As she grabbed her scruffy canvas work bag from the back of the vehicle she hummed quietly under her breath, an idle tune that she’d heard one of the kids singing and that had stuck with her for weeks afterwards. Her boots crunched on the gravel, the leather worn clean at the toes so that the metal plates showed through. Cutting across the lawn towards the lake, the woman allowed herself a moment to dally, subconsciously letting the night’s lingering nightmares seep from her taught muscles at the sight of the gnats hovering over the calm water and the lazily swaying reeds. 

She’d worked for the Wingraves at Bly Manor for over 4 years, and yet the sight of so much green, open space still felt special. A gift, perhaps, or an honour. It was only natural to react that way, Jamie supposed, after spending her first 24 years with little else to look at than redbrick, filth, and, later, cold steel bars. 

“Someone’s running late.” A teasing voice lilted behind her. Jamie couldn’t help the wide grin that rushed to her lips, but she managed to temper it before turning with a sceptically raised eyebrow. A few feet away stood the Wingrave’s au pair, wearing a loose-knit pink jumper and with her blonde hair catching the light like a halo. Jamie licked her lips subconsciously; Dani Clayton reminded her of every actress she’d grown up watching on the silver screen, with her Americanisms, accent, and effortless smiles. It was as though all of Jamie’s formative crushes had been rolled into one perfect Dani-shaped package and dropped right into Jamie’s pokey corner of England, except better, because Dani had something unique that all the Faye Dunaways, Rosemary Clooneys, and Doris Days in the world could never, a sort of kind-hearted fierceness, a sweetness and a sharpness that complimented each other in a way that made Jamie’s head swim.

“Didn’t realise I had to clock in.” She quipped, tucking her thumbs into the waistband of her undone coveralls. The other woman watched the motion, and let out a small giggle, holding out a steaming cup. Jamie took it, not wanting to admit the effect the gentle brush of their fingers had on her insides. 

“I won’t tell. Your secret is safe with me.” Dani stepped forwards slightly, close enough that Jamie could smell her perfume. 

“Then I suppose I won’t tell Owen you’ve been making a mess of his kitchen again.” Jamie said, raising the cup to her lips.

Dani blushed. “That was one time, and it was hardly a _mess_.”

Jamie frowned down at her cup, running her tongue on the roof of her mouth to appreciate the full flavour. “How have you been making me coffee for 6 months and it still tastes like that?”

“I’m getting better.” The American huffed in mock defensiveness. “You swallowed, didn’t you?” Her blue eyes widened, and her cheeks turned a deeper shade of rose.

Jamie smirked, unable to help herself. “I can hand on heart say that you’re the only person who has ever said that to me, Poppins. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“You know what I meant.” Dani gently swatted her friend’s bicep, still looking a little chagrined. Jamie decided to take pity on her.

“It is getting better. At this rate, another 6 months and we can think about letting you near the tea pot.”

“One of these mornings I’m going to let you make your own coffee.” Dani chided, but they both knew that it wasn’t true. It had become one of the favourite parts of Jamie’s day, those 10 minutes together before the rest of the house was awake, huddled in their own bubble with sleep still cocooning them like fine gauze and nothing to distract but the sound of the birds and the _tick-tick_ of Dani’s watch. Jamie suspected or at least hoped that Dani felt the same; she hadn’t missed a morning so far.

“But you need the practice.” Jamie said seriously, leaning forwards to tap Dani on her folded forearm with the tip of her finger. “I couldn’t get in the way of a learning opportunity. With you being a teacher and all.”

Dani smiled, but her gaze had become a little unfocused as soon as Jamie moved closer. Jamie felt the atmosphere shift to something more warm – more tangible. There was a moment where it felt like something might break, an elastic band pulled too tight, and then, like all the times before, it was gone. Dani stepped back with a nervous chuckle, and Jamie cleared her throat, feeling the familiar burst of frustration under her ribs.

“I should get back.” Dani said, already backing away, gesturing with her cup so sharply that some of the liquid inside sloshed out.

“Yeah.” Jamie nodded, adjusting the strap of her rucksack. “See you later, Poppins.” 

They’d been skirting around the edge of something almost since the first day they’d met, and Jamie knew what she thought it was, what she wished it was. She’d seen the not-so-subtle glances the au pair sent her way, the way she lingered over the dinner table on the nights that Jamie stayed. Jamie couldn’t believe that the pull she felt in her own chest wasn’t reciprocated in Dani’s. But every time it felt like they were close to the precipice, to just giving in and taking what they both wanted, Dani would jump back, or one of the children would come running in, or, occasionally, Jamie’s own well-hidden self-doubts would rear their head and send her stumbling backwards. It was equal parts intoxicating and maddening. 

By the wall of the one-room chapel that bordered the pond, Dani turned back to give a meek wave. Jamie held up her mug in salute, and then, with a sigh, threw the contents into the long grass and headed towards the safety of her greenhouse.

\---------------------------------------

By the time Dani Clayton was letting herself into the front door of the manor, her heart had calmed a little. It was infuriating, her inability to cross the last few feet of her lifetime long journey and ask for what she wanted. And there were few things in this world she wanted more than Jamie Taylor, with her porcelain doll features and hot, simmering…something. It wasn’t quite anger, and it certainly wasn’t disinterest, although Dani could see how less dedicated observers might mistake it for either. It hovered somewhere in the middle, uncertain yet almost solid, like an iron back bone that kept Jamie upright. It was hard to put her finger on, but Dani knew that whatever it was had been setting her stomach in knots for the past 6 months. 

“Up early, dear?” Dani jumped, clutching the hand that held the mug to her chest. Hannah Grose, the Manor’s impossibly competent housekeeper, laughed fondly. “Anyone would think you’ve got something to hide.”

“No, nope, nothing to hide.” Dani said quickly. “Just taking Jamie some coffee.”

Hannah raised her eyebrows knowingly. “You spoil that young woman.” 

Dani chuckled awkwardly. Hannah had a way of looking that suggested she could see right through you and into the secrets beyond. Knowing the woman as well as she did after half a year together, Dani wasn’t entirely sure that she couldn’t. “It’s just coffee.”

“Well,” Hannah quirked her lips in a half smile, “you make sure to tell her not to expect it from the rest of us. I’ve got enough to do cleaning up after her muddy boots without chasing her around with a cuppa as well.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that on.” Dani grinned, already imagining the gardener’s response.

“What-o.” Dani stepped quickly out of the path of the heavy front door as it swung open, narrowly missing her. The man on the other side pulled an apologetic face. “Sorry. I’ll get you next time.” 

“Owen, is it that time already?” Dani glanced over at Hannah, holding back a grin to see the housekeeper straightening her posture and rubbing nervously at the back of her shaved head, as if primping the hair that she hadn’t got. 

“’Fraid so.” The man twinkled, looking for all his handsome years like a nervous teenager, flirting for the first time. “No rest for the wicked.”

“Well, what does that make me then, always rushing around cleaning up your messes?” Hannah tutted fondly. 

“An angel, Mrs Grose.” Owen said firmly.

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Silly man. Come on, I’ll make you some tea before the madness starts.”

“You spoil that young man.” Dani called cheekily as the pair retreated to the kitchen, laughing to see the housekeeper send her a sarcastic scowl. 

From the floor above came the sound of small feet running across parquet. Dani heaved a happy breath and headed for the stairs. No rest for the wicked indeed, she thought mildly.

\---------------------------------------

“I’ve been sent to fetch you, on pain of no dinner.” 

Jamie looked up with the soft smile that the au pair liked to think she reserved for Dani alone. She gestured with her cigarette. “Just finish this and I’ll be in.”

“I’ll wait with you?” Dani stepped fully out of the back door, enjoying the late afternoon warmth on her skin. 

“Sure, I should think you’ve earned a break.” Jamie said through a cloud of blue smoke. “All I’ve heard all day is those two monsters shrieking.”

Dani smiled. “Yeah, it’s been quite a day. Thought we’d have some fun, seeing as how none of us could seem to focus in the heat.”

“Makes sense. Precious few days like this in England.” Jamie nodded sagely. “Reckon it’ll be raining again before too long.”

“Oh?” Dani asked, feeling a moment of sadness at the thought of rain, a sly reminder that one day soon summer would end. The children’s uncle was sending Miles back to school again in September, and soon enough Flora would follow in his footsteps, and then the idyll would be over.

Jamie nodded, pointing at the skyline with the hand holding the light. Dani squinted, using her hand to block the sun’s eager rays, and sure enough in the distance she could see rageful black and grey clouds, piling on top of each other as they surged closer. “I reckon won’t be long. Going to be a big one, too.”

“Is that where you’ve been all day?” Dani asked, wincing to hear the uncertainty in her tone. The gardener had been noticeably absent since first light, an occasional figure dashing across the lawn or bending to tend to a bloom, all stern focus and quick, efficient hands. She hadn’t even been seen at lunch, and Dani had begun to question their last interaction with barely restrained anxiety.

“Been securing everything that isn’t nailed down and covering the plants that won’t enjoy it.” Jamie pulled her green eyes from the gathering storm to Dani’s face, and winked. “Some blooms need a bit more help than others, Poppins.” 

“I thought maybe you were avoiding me.” Dani blurted, surprised to hear the words tumble out of her mouth. Embarrassed, she folded her arms and looked down at her shoes. Jamie’s brow crinkled. “I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t upset you this morning.” Dani continued, not looking up.

“No, Poppins.” She said with an intensity that made Dani swallow. Jamie flicked her cigarette butt into the gravel before stepping closer, tilting her head to make sure she had Dani’s full attention. “Dani, no. I wasn’t avoiding you, and I wasn’t upset with you. Quite the opposite.”

Her hand hovered over Dani’s bare wrist, not touching but close enough that Dani could feel the heat from her palm. “Jamie-“

“When I sent you to get her, I didn’t realise she was halfway to London.” Owen stuck his head out of the door, grinning at the two women who had sprung apart at the sound of his voice. “Dinner is served and its going cold while you two dawdle out here.”

“Christ, can’t a hardworking woman smoke a fag in peace?” Jamie grumbled, but she followed Dani inside, nevertheless.

Behind them, the sun vanished behind the clouds, swallowed by the darkness.

\---------------------------------------

Rain battered the windows, running in a solid stream down the glass; Jamie glared, imagining what the deluge was doing to her roses. 

On the couch nearest the empty grate, Flora and Miles were curled up against Dani, her arms holding both children tightly and whispering soothing words to try and calm their fears; a rumble of thunder sounded, almost directly overhead, and the children screamed as the lightening lit their faces white.

“Haven’t had a storm like this in a while.” Jamie noted, taking a long sip of red wine from her glass. 

“We need it though.” Hannah responded idly, playing with the cross that hung at her neck. “It’ll clear the air.”

“Bugger the air,” Jamie muttered, “think about my bloody saplings.”

“You sure you don’t mind us staying tonight?” Owen asked, ignoring the younger woman. 

“Not at all.” Hannah said firmly, tapping his knee. “If you don’t mind staying.”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be.” Owen smiled thinly. Jamie averted her eyes, thinking about the long weeks of quiet grieving that came after the chef’s mother passed away; the only tell had been the sorrow in his eyes, the same sorrow that lingered there now, and Jamie hoped one day to never see even a glimmer of it left. Owen Sharma was a good man, and Jamie knew above all else that he deserved to be happy.

“That’s settled then.” Hannah reached for the wine, topping up Owen’s glass. “It would be silly for either of you to try and get home in this.”

Jamie couldn’t help but agree. She’d driven in all sorts of weather over the years but heading out from the warm safety of the Manor into the storm raging outside filled her with an inexplicable cold dread. It was like the feeling she’d had when she was a child, knowing that something bad was going to happen – something that she was powerless to stop, but that should be avoided at all costs. Back then, it would be easy to pinpoint: it might be her mother flying into a tantrum, or the kids at school rounding a corner with hatred in their eyes, or, later, one of the men paid to foster her stumbling back from the pub with his drunkenly wandering hands. This was different; there was nothing to be scared about, and yet she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her friends on their own. Leaving them unprotected. Her eyes moved of their own accord across the room to where Dani was murmuring lovingly to her charges. As if feeling the weight of the gardener’s gaze, the American lifted her head, her expression turning wistful as they stared at each other.

Above their heads, another roar of thunder sounded, louder than the last. It seemed to go on for a long time, and Jamie was sure she heard the windowpanes rattle with it. The lights dimmed, flickering, and then righted themselves. This time, the kids hadn’t screamed, their frightened faces matching masks of silent terror. Jamie rose, moving across the floor to kneel by the settee, her hands reaching out to Flora. The little girl looked at her with big, scared eyes, and held her arms up gingerly, ready to be scooped into Jamie’s strong embrace.

There was a flash of neon blue that Jamie saw from the corner of her eyes, travelling down the metal of the leadlights and illuminating the trees outside an eerie pale, twisting them into mysterious shapes and looming figures against her retinas, and then, without further warning, the lights went out.

Flora was screaming, high pitched and shrill, her face pressed into Jamie’s neck close enough that she could feel the damp of her tears seeping onto the skin. Jamie wrapped an arm tighter around the girl’s small frame, feeling her shake, and felt wildly with the other for Dani.

The hand that gripped hers was small, too small to be the au pair’s, and it held on with a fearsome clamp that threatened to cut off the circulation. _Miles_ , Jamie thought, letting out a relieved curse. The boy was 10 and would often seem so surly and independent that Jamie forgot how young he actually was; inching forwards in the pitch blackness, Jamie squeezed the boy’s hand tighter.

“Its going to be ok kids, you hang onto me.” Raising her voice, she called into the dark, “Hannah, Owen, any idea where the torches are? I’ve got the kids and the Yank here, we’re all good!”

“We’re on it!” came Owen’s voice from outside the living room in the direction of the kitchen, followed by a thump and muffled swearing, as of someone hitting their knee on a wooden sideboard. 

“Dani, you with me?” Jamie asked, unwilling to let go of either Miles or Flora to fumble for the au pair.

“Got it!” Dani’s voice sounded from a few feet away, sounding triumphant.

“Got wh-“ Jamie began, and then slammed her eyes shut at the suddenly bright light shining directly in her face. “Jesus!”

“Oops, sorry!” When Jamie chanced opening up, it took a moment for her vision to adjust. Dani was standing by the fireplace, smiling proudly; in her hand was a small travel torch. “We were playing 'Creep In The Dark' a few days ago and I knew I’d left the flashlight around here.” Dani’s smile faltered. “Jamie?”

Jamie wasn’t looking at her. She was staring behind her, into the gloom behind the point of light. Dani followed her line of sight, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck prickle at the strangeness of the woman’s expression. “What? Jamie, what is it?”

Behind his governess, Miles shuffled his feet, uncomfortable being the centre of Jamie’s attention. “Its only me, Jamie.” He said, sounding uncertain. “Miles.”

“Miles, if you’re there...” Jamie whispered, bringing her hand up to eye level, “…then who’s fucking hand was I holding?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people, I have updated the rating and the tags for this story on reflection; there isn't going to be anything massively graphic, but it is going to delve into the characters' back stories a bit, and it is a horror so the ghosts might be quite dark. Please have a little double check of the tags to see if you're still comfortable reading, and we'll continue...

“They do say that stress can do strange things to the body.” Hannah offered helpfully, pushing the glass into Jamie’s quivering hand. “What with the day you’ve had and poor Flora screeching in your ear, it’s no wonder you’re imagining things.”

“Yeah, when mum was…” Owen shook his head slightly. “Well, there’d be times late at night I thought I saw all sorts.”

“I didn’t _see_ anything, Owen.” Jamie growled, emptying her the wine into her mouth and swallowing harshly. “I felt someone holding my hand.”

“Maybe it was Miles. Before we got up to get the torch, I mean?” Dani suggested, wringing her hands together nervously. Jamie peered over the top of Flora’s head, noting the worry in Dani’s face, and willed her own panic down. She wasn’t a woman given to flights of fancy, and she certainly wasn’t one to show fear in front of others, not even the strange hodge-podge family they’d cobbled together at Bly. 

“Could be. Yeah, I reckon it could be, Poppins.” Jamie accepted grudgingly. Dani looked unconvinced, but she smiled and some of the tension eased from her shoulders. In Jamie’s arms, Flora stirred, sleeping soundly now the excitement had died down. The girl had refused to let go of Jamie even after the room had been lit with candles and torches, only clinging tighter when the gardener tried to put her down. If she were being honest with herself, and Jamie was always honest with herself, she had felt glad for the comfort, even if her arms were going to sleep under the 8 year old’s weight. Miles didn’t react to the sound of his name; the boy was sat next to Hannah, his head resting on her shoulder and his eyes drooping under the weight of the hour. Jamie sniffed, freeing one hand from under Flora to wipe at her nose. “Right, I’ll just catch my breath, and then I’ll nip out to look at the fuse box. See if we can’t get the power back on.”

As if on cue, a peel of thunder sounded outside, driving the rain harder into the window. Another flash of lightening lit up the room, and for a second Jamie thought she saw someone silhouetted against the glass. When she looked again, eyes narrowed, there was no one there.

“You absolutely will not.” Hannah said firmly. “No one is going outside until this has passed.”

Owen opened his mouth to speak. Hannah held up her hand. “No-one, Owen. Its raining cats and dogs out there, and for all we know the whole area is off. We’ve got plenty of candles to last until morning.”

“I should put the kids to bed, at least.” Dani leaned forwards, stroking Flora’s hair, and Jamie got another whiff of her floral scent. It was soothing, and the gardener closed her eyes, allowing it to wash over her.

“I’ll help you.” Owen said, already rising to his feet and pulling Miles gently up. The boy didn’t resist, wrapping his arms and legs around the man and allowing himself to be lifted from the ground. Dani smiled gratefully, and Jamie thought absently how good the young American looked in the flickering candlelight, all soft edges and kindness.

“I’ll-“ Jamie began, moving to put her glass down.

“You’ll sit there while I make us some tea.” Hannah said, her voice broking no argument. 

“I can help, Hannah.” Jamie insisted stubbornly.

“You can help by doing as you’re told.” Dani quirked her eyebrows teasingly, reaching to pluck Flora from Jamie’s arms. The cold left in the child’s place felt disconcerting, and Jamie frowned. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

Alone in the living room, Jamie settled back into the sofa, rubbing her right hand on her jeans, trying to scrub away the feeling of a little hand squeezing it, and consciously avoiding looking into the shadows for fear of what she might see looking back.

\-----------------------------

Hannah filled the old stove-top kettle from the tap, exhaling slowly. On the dining table the torch provided a watery glow, but Hannah didn’t need the light to know what she was doing. She’d worked at Bly for more years than she’d care to admit and could find her way around with her eyes closed if it came to it. A flash of lightening lit the room for a second, and then was gone.

With a stifled yawn, the woman placed the kettle on the hob, fumbling in the drawer next to it for the matches, and lit the gas. Over the acrid smell of the sulphur, she caught something else. A spicey, masculine scent, instantly recognisable and yet long forgotten. It had been as familiar once as the tang of her own skin, and she couldn’t place why she would be smelling it now. Hannah shook her head. “Stress.” She muttered, throwing the dead matchstick into the sink; she could deal with that tomorrow when the light drove all this nonsense away.

Turning away from the burning blue flickering on the stove, she pulled 4 cups from the overhead cupboard, balancing them precariously as she pivoted. Putting them on the waiting tray, Hannah reached back for the tea pot. That was when she saw it, reflected in the shiny metallic surface of the coffee pot that sat at eye level in the dark recesses of the cupboard: a figure, a humanoid shape of darker shadow against the pitch of the open doorway at her back, its form distorted in the curve of the steel but still recognisable as a person. It stood still, stock still, but Hannah knew in her bones that It was watching her. In her throat, her breath hitched, her heart stopping for a second before the fight or flight response kicked in and she spun, tea pot raised ready to strike.

There was no one there. The doorway was empty, and as she dragged her frantic eyes around the room, there wasn’t so much as a spoon out of place in the whole kitchen. Feeling a bit foolish, she bent her knees and checked under both tables, relieved not to see any unknown eyes staring back at her. “Tsk, Hannah, you’re dreaming up spectres now too.” The housekeeper said when her breathing had slowed to a normal speed. She spoke loudly, glad to hear some words of comfort even if they were coming from her own mouth. _Especially_ if they were coming from her own mouth, she thought, given the circumstances.

With a last check around the room, she went back to finishing the tea, taking the kettle off before it began to sing; she was unsure if her nerves could handle the noise. Her eyes didn’t move to the coffee pot, and she didn’t check over her shoulder, but it was only by sheer force of will. Hannah Grose was a strong-willed, sensible woman. She knew all the stories the local children told about the manor house – of ghost ladies who walked the grounds and of murdered sisters in the attic – and she also knew that they were hogwash. The only ghosts in this world, Hannah had long ago learned, were the ones we fashioned for ourselves, and she wasn’t about to add to an already terrible night because her own tired eyes had decided to play tricks on her.

Finishing the brew, she picked up the tray and, pausing to balance the torch next to the milk jug, set off in the direction of the living room, pointedly ignoring the smell of aftershave that followed her as she went.

“Here we go.” Hannah said brightly as she walked in, pretending not to notice Jamie jump at the sound of her voice. “A nice cup of tea will set us right.”

“Always does.” Jamie agreed, moving to sit nearer, elbows balancing on her knees. After a moment of peace, the younger woman cleared her throat. “Look, I’m sorry.”

Hannah tilted her head, passing a steaming cup to Jamie, who was sheepishly avoiding her eyes. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, love.”

Jamie shrugged, passing a hand over her mouth. “Feels like I frightened the kids.”

“They won’t even remember by the morning. Children forget the little bumps in the road quickly enough.”

Jamie thought of her own childhood and kept her counsel. From the doorway came the sound of footsteps, revealing Owen clutching a pile of blankets. As he stepped into the candlelight, his face looked ashen, pulled tight.

“Owen mate, you ok?” Jamie asked, rising to her feet and stepping forwards, sliding the teacup onto a side table.

The man threw the armful of blankets onto the armchair nearest the door, wiping a palm over his face, before scratching nervously at his impressive moustache. “Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.”

“You don’t _look_ fine.” Jamie said, glancing at Hannah who was staring at the cook with a concerned furrow to her brow.

“I thought I smelled something. Something weird. I haven’t smelt it since…” Hearing the words he was saying the man straightened, shifting onto his other foot. “Nothing a cup of Mrs Grose’s finest won’t solve.” Owen smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Hannah patted the seat next to her, worry etched in the furrow of her brow and tightly clenched jaw. “Come and sit down here by me.”

“Where’s Dani?”

Owen picked up Jamie’s discarded mug and flumped onto the couch with a grunt. “She said she’d stay with a kids a while longer, to make sure they’re alright.”

“I might just nip up and check on them.” Jamie pointed a thumb over her shoulder and started to edge towards the door.

“They’re ok, Jamie.” Hannah said with a kind, exasperated smile. “I’m sure she’ll call if she needs you to do your knight-in-shining-armour bit.”

Jamie peered into the dark reception area. The outlines of the furniture which were usually so familiar appeared to have changed into nightmares in the hour since the lights went out, looking out of place and vaguely threatening. “I don’t know…”

“Come and drink your tea.” Hannah nodded at a seat, holding out a fresh cup. “Dani won’t thank you for running yourself ragged.”

Jamie nodded slowly and turned back, missing as she did so the minor shifting of shadow that suggested someone moving, slow and low, towards the stairs.

“So what was it?” The gardener slid onto the seat parallel to her friends, reaching for the mug. “The weird smell.”

“I don’t know.” Owen leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. He looked uncharacteristically awkward, almost as though he was hiding something. It didn’t suit him, Jamie thought, but didn’t push the matter. “Just this sweet smell. Sickly.”

“Could be damp.” Jamie pursed her lips, looking at the rain streaming down the windows. “Old house like this.”

“That’s all we need.” Hannah sighed, sipping her tea.

“No, it wasn’t damp. It reminded me of…” Owen huffed. “Never mind. It was just out of place, if it was even anything.”

“Well, it must have been something. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Hannah said sympathetically. 

“There’s a lot of that going around.” Jamie muttered, glancing over her shoulder into the empty space beyond their circle of warmth. The unnerved feeling she’d carried all evening thrummed loudly in her gut, baying for attention, but for the life of her she couldn’t understand what it was asking for.

\-----------------------------

The soft snoring of the children tucked into Flora’s single bed and the sound of the rain were a compliment to the silence that permeated the bedroom, making Dani drowsy where she sat on the floor, her back pressed against the wall. Every few minutes, a rumble would sound, and the lightening would crackle, but the small bodies in the bed hadn’t stirred, worn out from the heat of the day and the terror of the evening.

Dani peered up, checking that they were still asleep. Miles had his arm draped protectively over his sister, and the little girl was dribbling slightly into her pillow. They looked peaceful, and the sight eased some of the uneasiness that was accumulating in Dani’s chest cavity like a lump of thick, sticky clay.

From the hallway came the unmistakeable _thump-thump-thump_ of footsteps. Dani looked at the door, a smile already forming on her lips in anticipation of the friendly head that would pop around it, beckoning her downstairs. The steps came nearer, louder, a slight drag to them as though whoever it was hadn’t quite the energy to lift their feet. They stopped right outside, the old, warped floorboards creaking under the weight of an adult body, and then…nothing. Dani frowned as the moments dragged on, wondering why they didn’t come in. Glancing at the bed again, she slowly rose, reaching for the handle and carefully, quietly pulling the door open.

There was no one there. Her frown deepening, Dani stuck her head out, looking first one way, then another. “Jamie?” she whispered, confused. “Guys?”

Silence was the response. The corridor was deserted. Across from her, her own door was closed, and she knew that she’d have heard the squeal of the hinges if whoever had been walking the hall had opened it. She’d been meaning to ask Jamie to take a look for weeks, the noise getting progressively worse as time went on, but hadn’t known how to ask the woman up to her room without it sounding salacious. Suddenly feeling a little unhinged herself, Dani closed the door, careful not to wake the children up as it clicked shut.

_Creak_ , the floor behind her sounded into the pitch black of the bedroom. Dani froze, hands still pressed against the wood, ears straining to hear for anything out of place – an unaccounted for breath, perhaps, or the shuffle of clothing. Over the sound of the storm, there was silence.

_Creakkk_. Dani felt her blood run cold. Someone was in the room. Swallowing, she turned, treacle slow. The bedroom was empty, save for her and the children, and Flora and Miles slept on. Dani exhaled, rubbing at her forehead. “The storms really gotten into your head.” She whispered under her breath. Looking once more at her charges, the au pair turned to leave, thinking that some adult company and a hot cup of tea would do her good.

From the corner of her eye, on the floor by the bed, she saw something move – a jerky, unnatural movement, that caught her attention instantaneously. Unblinking, she lowered herself to fumble for the torch, finding it next to where she’d been sitting. Steeling herself, she pointed it towards the thin, slumped shape she could just make out against the rug, and flicked the switch, illuminating a tondo of the scene in front of her.

It was two feet, wearing scuffed black shoes and black socks, and attached to legs covered in grey, blood-stained trousers that disappeared behind the bed. They were twitching, the noise muffled by the carpet. Dani let out a small, involuntary moan, fear catching in her throat and forcing its way out. Marshalling her courage, she stepped carefully forwards. Her demeanour was ginger, as it might be for a woman approaching a sleeping bear, scared that at any moment it could jump up and savage her. Inch-by-inch, more of the body came into view; the legs gave way to a torso covered in a grey sweatshirt, patches of it turning scarlet. There was a flash that Dani realised with a start was the light reflecting on the face of a watch, which was attached to a shaking, blood-spattered wrist. The woman felt her mouth fall open in horror; she knew that watch. She’d seen it every day until she was 26, and the sight of it now filled her with dread.

“Dani”, a gargled voice sounded from the darkness, the murmur sounding from around where the unseen head must be. It was, to Dani, hideously, painfully familiar.

Her scream went on for a long time, even after the door burst open and she was in Jamie’s strong arms, Hannah fussing nearby. It was as though the sight of the shaking body on the floor had reached deep inside of her, pulled out 13 months worth of anguish, and thrown it as far out into the uncaring heart of the night as possible. It only stopped when Owen, looking like he was fighting a scream of his own, asked where the children were.


	3. Chapter 3

The scream was a splash of cold water down Jamie’s spine, echoing through the hall and down the staircase, loud and full of terror. She’d been up and taking the stairs two at a time before she’d really had chance to understand what was happening, thundering footsteps at her heels as Owen and Hannah chased after her.

In Flora’s room, it took a second for her eyes to adjust after the darkness of the corridor, but as Dani came into focus, back lit by the torch she held in her hand, Jamie’s only thought was to get to her, hold her, keep her safe. Without hesitation, she pulled the shrieking woman into her arms, wrapping tightly as though she could keep the American together with force of will alone. Dani was pointing at the floor by the bed, but look as she might, Jamie couldn’t see what could have startled her.

“Dani, love, what is it? What’s wrong?” Jamie begged, manically searching for the cause of her friend’s distress, ready to fight whatever or whoever Dani needed saving from.

“Dani, its ok, Dani-“ Hannah was repeating on the au pair’s other side, her gentle, work-worn hands brushing at the younger woman’s blonde hair where it had come loose from her ponytail. Dani didn’t seem to hear, lost in a nightmare of her own.

As suddenly as it started the screaming stopped. In the unexpected silence, Jamie mentally screeched to a halt, eyes dragging up to Dani’s face. Her cheeks were tear stained and her mouth still hung open, but her wide, scared eyes weren’t looking at the floor anymore; they were staring over Jamie’s shoulder.

“Dani, where are the kids?” Owen repeated, and Jamie realised that in the frantic confusion she hadn’t registered him ask the first time.

“Oh god.” Hannah whispered, easing the torch from Dani’s white-knuckle grip and pointing it at the bed. It was empty, the quilt pushed back and the sheets rumpled as though recently abandoned. 

“They were right there.” Dani said, pulling away from Jamie’s embrace to rush to Owen’s side. She ran her palms over the mattress, her frown deepening. “It’s still warm, they couldn’t have gotten far.”

Owen dropped to his knees, lifting the covers to peer under the bed. “Not here.”

“I’ll check the wardrobe.” Hannah rushed forwards, pulling the door open and stepping inside. The bedroom was momentarily plunged into darkness, the remaining occupants listening with bated breath as the housekeeper rummaged through hanging clothes and discarded boxes. Outside thunder rolled, still sounding as close as when the lights went out, as though the storm was caught directly overhead unable to escape.

Next to her, Jamie felt the air shift and she jumped as a hand pressed into her own. _Dani_ , she realised as lightening painted the room electric white. The woman looked more composed, wiping her checks and eyes on the back of her bare forearm as she leaned into Jamie for comfort. “It’s going to be ok. We’ll sort it.” Jamie whispered into the dark, giving her hand a squeeze for emphasis. Dani didn’t respond.

“They in there, Hannah?” Jamie called after a couple of minutes. 

The housekeeper stepped out of the cupboard, and although Jamie couldn’t see her face behind the glaring light of the torch, she could tell from the tightness of the woman’s frame that the children hadn’t been found. 

“I’ll check Miles’s room.” Owen said before Hannah could utter a word, moving towards the door to the shared bathroom, hands fumbling in the gloom for the handle.

Both the bathroom and the bedroom beyond were empty. Perplexed, the adults stood for a moment, unsure of what to do next, or how the children could have gotten passed them in the narrow corridor outside.

“This is all my fault.” Dani said quietly, her hand clamped to her forehead. “I must have terrified the poor little things and now they’re gone.”

“Don’t blame yourself, dear.” Hannah said, placing a soothing palm on the younger woman’s bicep. “They can’t have gotten far.”

Jamie and Owen nodded emphatically. “They’re probably just hiding; you know this house is a bloody maze.” The gardener said firmly, loosening her grip on Dani’s hand to slide an arm around her shivering shoulders. “Come on, let’s get more light from downstairs and we can do a proper search.”

They made their way downstairs slowly, following the single point of light. The shadows seemed to darken in its wake, growing larger and deeper as though to overcome the intrusion, and when they entered the warm candle glow of the living room, all four sighed in visible relief. The room was as they’d left it, the tea lights flickering cosily in their glass holders and the blankets lying haphazardly where they’d been dropped. Nothing was out of place to suggest the strangeness of the evening they were having other than their own elevated heartbeats and the wrinkles of worry that each wore on their face.

“Let’s split up so we can cover more ground.” Dani stated when they were all armed with torches. Owen and Jamie exchanged a glance.

“How about we split into pairs?” Owen responded carefully. “Just in case.”

“Yeah, I mean, no sense in all of us going off in different directions and tripping over each other.” Jamie agreed, a little too quickly, her eyes resting on Dani. 

“Not scared of the dark, are you?” Hannah chuckled not unkindly, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes and when Owen nodded towards the door, she followed him in the direction of the school room. 

“Just you and me then, Poppins.” Jamie said jovially. Dani looked at her with watery eyes and gave a weak quirk of her lips. “Come on, lets head back upstairs.”

Jamie led the way, their steps echoing loudly against the old wood. At the top of the staircase, she shone her torch left and right. “Where shall we start?”

“Let’s check their rooms again.” Dani shrugged. “Just in case they’ve gone back, or we missed something the first time.” 

They walked in tandem, shoulders bumping together. As they neared Flora’s room, Jamie stopped dead, her eyes staring across the hall. Dani followed her gaze. The door to her bedroom was open, the pitch black inside seeming to drift out, like fog over an open field.

“Reckon we’ve found them, eh?” Jamie grinned, striding forwards. Her torchlight blazed through the opening and just for a second she saw a flash of movement on the other side, small and child sized. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Flora, its ok. You don’t need to be frightened, it’s just Jamie and Dani.” 

The room was empty. “I saw her. I definitely saw her.” Jamie huffed. “Did you see her?” 

“I didn’t see anything.” Dani frowned. “Check under the bed?”

Jamie nodded, lowering to hands and knees at the side of the old double bed and lifting the bedsheets up. Emptiness greeted her. “It doesn’t make sense; she was just here.” Jamie dropped the cloth, her brow furrowed with a potent mix of confusion and frustration. On the other side of the room, Dani was bent double, peering under the small desk. “I swear, Poppins, when we find these gremlins, I’m-“

Her words dried in her throat as she got to her feet. The man stood on the other side of the bed, tall and broad, his head brushing the ceiling and his meaty bare arms already reaching forwards. Jamie stepped back, swinging the torch up, and light flooded the intruder’s form.

There was nothing there. 

“I’ll check the bathroom.” Dani swung her own torch round and made her way towards the tiny ensuite, her path taking her straight through where the phantom had been standing. Jamie flashed the torch around the room, but they were alone. 

“Get it together, Taylor.” She gritted out. Whether it was the storm, the electricity going out, or the tricks her body was playing on her, she hadn’t felt so unmoored for a long time. She needed to hold the pieces together, at least until they found the children. Then maybe she could slink off for a bit with a bottle of whatever was going and a pack of fags to calm her nerves. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath; in for four, out for six, just like her therapist had taught her. In for four, out for six. 

Behind her, unseen, shadows drifted across the expensive, patterned wallpaper. 

Dani had always hated mirrors. Something about them, the way they cloyed, pawing at her reflection had always set her teeth on edge. When she was a child, it was an irrational fear of what she might see looking back, at her shoulder or behind her eyes. As she got older and she stopped being able to recognise herself in the woman reflected there, it became more visceral. Out of habit she avoided looking at it now, moving directly to the only hiding place, the shower curtain that hung floor length over a small tray. As her hand hovered ready to pull it back, she hesitated; a long forgotten, childish memory jostled to the front of her mind of a horror film she’d seen much too young and a woman screaming as water rained down around her. Dani set her jaw and tugged.

The shower was empty. “They’re not in here.”

Silence was the reply. “Jamie?” 

Stepping into the main room, Dani hesitated. Jamie was where she’d left her, eyes closed, steadily inhaling and exhaling. She looked peaceful and sturdy, and Dani felt her heart swell at the sight. Jamie almost always looked tense, on edge, always ready to go, as if expecting the other shoe to drop at any moment. It was something in the way she held herself, Dani thought, never quite able to relax even when she was ostensibly most at ease. It felt like a privilege and an intrusion to watch her now, like this, calmer than Dani thought she’d ever seen her. “Jamie?”

Jamie’s eyes sprung open, unfocused. “What?”

“The kids. They aren’t in here.” Dani clarified. 

“Oh. Right.” Jamie cleared her throat, her free hand moving to rub the back of her neck. “Sorry, I was just…”

“It’s ok.” Dani smiled in spite of the weight of the night. “I understand.”

Jamie nodded, pursing her lips, looking like she wanted to say more. “Let’s check their rooms, yeah?”

Just as before, Miles and Flora’s rooms were deserted. Dani glanced at the floor where she’d seen the body, but it too was empty, no sign of the horror that had been there, and that she’d seen clear as day with her own terrified eyes. 

“You ok, Poppins?” Jamie asked in a low voice, stepping closer.

“Yeah, I just…” Dani sighed. “I’m not going crazy, Jamie. I swear I saw something there.”

“I believe you.”

Dani looked up into understanding green eyes. “You do?”

Jamie shrugged. “Yeah. I do. If you say you saw something, then you saw something. You’ve never given me cause to disbelieve you, Poppins.”

“Thank you, Jamie.” Dani said genuinely. “I appreciate that.”

“Anytime. Come on, let’s check the old wing.” The Englishwoman inclined her head. Reluctantly and with one final look behind the bed, Dani trailed after her. 

“So, what was it?” Jamie asked as they walked, step in step.

Dani didn’t need to ask to what she was referring. “I think it was my fiancé.”

“The one who…” 

“Yeah. The one who died. Edmund.” Dani puffed out her cheeks. “Don’t have a lot of them lying around, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Dani. Was he…what did he look like?”

“He looked exactly like the last time I saw him alive, lying in the middle of the street.” 

“Jesus, Dani.” Jamie slowed, looking at her friend with sympathy dripping from every pore. “I didn’t realise you’d actually _been there_. I can’t imagine what that was like.”

Dani turned to face her, eyes damp. “Jamie, it wasn’t just that I saw it. It…it was my fault.”

Jamie screwed up her face. “Dani, no, it wasn’t-“

“It was my fault, Jamie.” The au pair insisted. “We were sat in his car, and I told him I couldn’t marry him. Told him I couldn’t marry him because I didn’t feel that way about…about him. And he was upset, of course he was, and he got out without looking, right into the path of an oncoming truck. I killed him, Jamie. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

Jamie heaved a breath, moving from one foot the other. “Dani, that’s not how this works. That was an accident, a horrible, stupid accident, but it wasn’t your fault. It’s not like you pushed him is it?”

Dani looked horrified. “No, god, of course not.”

“Well then.” Jamie stepped forwards, her hands coming to rest on Dani’s forearms. In the twilight of the torchlight, her face appeared eerie, the lines exaggerated and her skin glowing. “Dani, I know guilt, ok? I’ve lived with it for long enough myself, and I can see that you’re carrying it around like stones in your pockets, just waiting to sink. But you don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. I’m sorry Dani, but you don’t. Accidents happen, whether we like it or not.”

“But what if that’s why he’s here?” Dani whispered, searching Jamie’s face. 

“Then I’ll knock him out for you. Just say the word. Clean out, one punch.”

Dani barked a laugh at the unexpected delivery, and some of the pain pushing on her rib cage eased. It reminded her of a time not long after they’d first met, when the gardener had found her sobbing behind a bush and with a kindness that she hadn’t needed to show, talked Dani down from a panic attack.

“There we go.” Jamie gave a half smile, bringing a hand up to wipe away a tear trickling down Dani’s cheek. “It’s going to be ok, Poppins. With me and you together, there’s nothing we can’t solve.”

Dani inhaled. “Ok.”

“Ok.” Jamie agreed, dropping a hand to hold one of Dani’s. “Now let’s go find these little shits.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t understand where they could have run off to.” Hannah pulled out a chair at the long dining table before sliding wearily into it. “It’s like they’ve just vanished into thin air.”

“The girls will find them.” Owen said with such comforting certainty that Hannah couldn’t help but smile. “There’s only so many hiding places even in this house.”

They’d scoured the ground floor, opening every door, and methodically checking under each piece of furniture that could accommodate anything larger than a cat. There was no sign of the children. The only mercy was that both the front and back doors were closed, suggesting that Flora and Miles were still inside. 

The friends sat for a while in silence mulling their options, the sound of the grandfather clock in the reception area oddly loud, even over the racket of thunder and rain drenching the building outside.

“The cellar.” Hannah said suddenly, sitting upright. “We haven’t checked the cellar.”

Owen stroked his moustache. “I doubt it, Flora hates it down there.”

The housekeeper gave a full body shrug as she stood, looking tired. “Well, it’s worth a look anyway.”

“Mrs Grose, you stay right there and rest your tired feet.” Owen said with a characteristically theatrical flourish. “I’ll be back in two ticks.”

“Shouldn’t we both go?” Hannah queried, looking over the man’s shoulder into the gloom.

“What’s wrong, not scared of the dark, are you?” Owen twinkled, parroting her earlier words back at her. Hannah tutted, sinking back into the chair. 

“Fine, but don’t come running to me if you scare yourself silly.”

Owen winked, grabbing his torch and striding away. His confidence faltered slightly as the cellar door creaked open and the waft of cold, moist air slunk out, the smell of earth and mildew making his nose crinkle. Shining the torch down the stairs, he sucked in a sour breath. The light seemed to be swallowed in that cavernous space, barely illuminating all the way to the ground, let alone the rest of the basement. 

“Stop being an idiot.” The cook muttered, feeling foolish. There was nothing exciting down there; it was little more than storage space for the canned goods that spilled out of the pantry, Hannah’s ancient washer dryer, and Lord Wingrave’s impressive, dwindling, wine collection. Mentally pulling himself together, Owen started the descent.

He was on the fifth step, almost halfway, when he heard a whimpering. That, he would think later, was the only word for it – a weak, sad little whimper, coming from the dank recess, like a small child who was scared of the dark. Relief flooded his chest. “Flora, sweetheart, its ok. We’ve been looking everywhere for you and your brother. Thought we were going to have to call Miss Marple on you.”

As his feet found the floor, the light chanced on an ivory white face, staring dead-eyed directly at him. He yelped, poised to make a run for it, and then his eyes took in what he was seeing. A mound of old toys, long since abandoned, lay in a heap to one side, their creepy doll faces watching the comings-and-goings since long before either Wingrave child was born. “Bloody things.” Owen said under his breath, glaring at the toys. “Flora, Miles, you can come out now. Your hero has arrived.”

There was a faint sob, further back into the cellar. Owen walked towards it. “Come on, little ones, we’re not cross with you. We just want you safely upstairs with us.” The torch light reflected off rows of green-glass bottles, and the white shell of the tumble dryer. As he moved on, squinting into every nook and cranny, it illuminated a few storage boxes and rusted paint cans, but conspicuously not any small children. 

He was within 10 feet of the end of the room when the bed came into the circle of vision created by his torch. Owen frowned. “That’s new.” 

It was a rickety looking bed, with a metal frame and high sidings; on the slats lay a thin, blue mattress. The air around him thickened, and he watched in horror as the bed rocked on its little, impractical castors, as though someone with great difficulty had just stood up. A sickly-sweet smell filled his lungs, viscous enough that he could taste it on his tongue. It tasted like sickness, and decrepitude, and death. Directly in front of him, something shifted, something he couldn’t see but could sense, and then, shrill and clear and close enough that he could feel the hot breath on his face, a pitiful, pain-filled shriek burst forth. Something collided with his chest, not heavy but with enough velocity to make him stumble, loosing his footing and dropping to his knees. His hands came up to push whatever had hit him away, and under them he felt strange, birdlike limbs, clasping at him. The shriek was everywhere now, mingled with the stench and forcing him lower and lower under its weight.

“Owen!” A familiar voice was yelling, and hands were on his shoulders – under his arms – yanking him to his feet and towards the stairs. “I’ve got you; I’ve got you!”

“Hannah?” Owen asked, his voice dazed as the housekeeper pulled him resolutely up and into the fresher air of the kitchen. When they reached the top step, he turned to glance over his shoulder. At the bottom of the staircase, alone in the fading light, was a hunched figure, barely more than a flash of pale against the encroaching inky blackness of the basement. It looked to Owen like a mash of straggled white hair and dirty, off-colour shift. The door closed to with a thud, and the image was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me as a reader: "I really love these characters and I want nothing but good things for all of them."  
> Me as a writer: "Make them suffer."
> 
> This is my first trip into horror writing that doesn't involve zombies, so constructive criticism is very much appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Hannah Grose had spent most of her adult life caring for others. She’d left school at 16 and not long afterwards had met and married a man with an easy smile and a fickle heart. From then on it had been her occupation to care, first for her husband, then her employers, and later their children. She’d lived a life centred around knowing how to tend to the running of a house and, more subtly, the people in it. It had moulded her into someone tender of spirit and quick witted, a fixer of other people’s problems, whether those problems required a mop, a plaster, or a listening ear. As she hauled Owen bodily across the night-time kitchen and into the hallway beyond, she wondered without words how she was going to fix this. The man she cared about, the man she _loved_ in her own quiet unassuming way, was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, mumbling incoherently, and for the first time she had no idea how to help.

“Hannah, what the fuck?” Jamie cried, clattering down the stairs towards them, Dani hot on her heels. “What happened to him?”

“Into the living room.” Was all she managed, sagging under the weight. Jamie grabbed Owen’s other arm, lifting his tall, heavy body with a strength that her small stature shouldn't have been capable of. 

The glow of the living room was dimming, the tea lights burning themselves out one by one. Dani rushed to light more as the others manhandled Owen to a comfortable armchair. Slowly, as the room brightened some of the panic seemed to subside.

“Here, drink this.” Jamie shoved a mug into Owen’s hand, guiding it to his mouth to steady the vibrations that seemed to be running through his entire frame. The man took a large gulp.

“Cold.” He managed.

“I’ll get a blanket.” Dani rushed to where the bedding had been abandoned, eager to help. To feel less helpless.

“N-no,” Owen stuttered. “The tea. It’s cold.”

“I’ll go make some more.” The blonde said brightly, turning to leave.

“No!” Shock rippled through the occupants of the room at Owen’s shout. Hannah swallowed thickly; she’d worked with Owen for three years, and never once had she heard him raise his voice. It sounded wrong, that volume coming from the cook’s perennially smiling mouth, and she felt her nerves tear with it.

“Hey, its ok mate.” Jamie lowered herself onto the arm of the chair, placing a hand on Owen’s shoulder.

“Is it?” he responded, reaching to remove his glasses so that he could rub his red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but something _grabbed_ me.”

“Grabbed you?” Dani whispered, alarmed. Jamie looked up at her tone, then gestured for the au pair to come nearer, tugging her by the wrist until they were close enough to comfortably hold hands.

“Where?” She asked, turning back to Owen.

“In the cellar. There was a bed, like a…a…hospital bed or something.” He exhaled. “And that smell again, the horrible sick-bed smell. Then it jumped on me.”

“What jumped on you?” Hannah asked, crouching at his feet and leaning her weight against the man’s knees.

“I…I have no idea. I didn’t see it. I felt it, but I didn’t see it. If it hadn’t been for you pulling me out, Christ only knows what would have happened.”

“You were there?” Jamie asked, looking at the housekeeper with unhappy interest.

“I heard Owen cry out, so I went down but I didn’t see anything. Just Owen struggling.” Hannah answered. 

Jamie puffed her cheeks out, standing and putting her hands on her hips. She began to walk backwards and forwards in short steps, seeming angry with her jaw grinding and her shoulders tight. “What the fuck is going on. Owen gets dragged down by fuck knows, Dani sees her-“ she stopped and shook her head, before continuing, “-sees a body in the bedroom, and the kids have scarpered.”

“And you felt something touch your hand.” Dani said quietly. “Didn’t you?”

Jamie shrugged, eyebrows raising. “I dunno anymore what I felt.”

“What about you Hannah? Have you seen anything?” 

Hannah looked uncomfortable. “No. Well, maybe. I think my minds playing tricks on me.”

“What did you see?” Jamie, who had gone back to her frustrated pacing, paused.

“I thought I saw someone in the kitchen earlier. A reflection, in the coffee pot. But when I turned, he was gone.”

“He?” Owen queried, sliding his glasses back onto his face.

“Or she.” Hannah said quickly. “I just assumed.”

They stood in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts as lightening flashed in the windows and the rain battered down without showing any signs of easing. Time felt disjointed, and it was hard to say how long the storm had been raging. It could be hours or minutes; no one was inclined to go into the hallway and check the ancient clock.

“Did you find any sign of the children?” Hannah asked eventually, gazing up with hopeful eyes.

“No.” Dani pouted. “We checked every room upstairs. There’s no sign of them.”

“Just the attic to go. We heard the commotion before we got chance to look.” Jamie threw her hands up. “This is mad.”

“Ok.” Owen slapped his knees. He rose, moving to the globe-shaped drinks trolley that sat in one corner and flipping the lid, the tumblers underneath clinking together merrily. “Who wants a drink?”

“Yes, thank fuck.” Jamie stalked over, grabbing a bottle of amber liquid out without pausing to get a glass.

“I suppose one won’t hurt.” Hannah agreed, accepting the glass of sherry that Owen offered. “Just to take the edge off.”

“Dani?” The cook said, waving a hand over the various bottles. 

The au pair looked hesitant, glancing over her shoulder into the darkened hall. It felt wrong, sitting downstairs and drinking Henry Wingrave’s liquor when Miles and Flora were still missing, probably frightened and in need of comfort. 

“Here.” She turned at Jamie’s voice. The gardener was holding out the bottle she’d lifted, a soft smile on her face. “Like Hannah says, just to take the edge off.”

“A sip, then.” Dani agreed, taking a mouthful of the expensive, sweet rum and coughing as it hit the back of her throat. “Wow, that’s good stuff.”

“Posh people don’t stint, learned that early on in my misspent youth.” the brunette winked, and in spite of everything, Dani chuckled. She’d heard some of the funnier stories of young Jamie’s exploits, always sanitised and never straying too close to the thorny path Jamie had walked and that Dani had picked up hints of between the jokes and the farces. “Come on, take the weight off for five. You’ve been running around all day and night.”

Dani sat, waiting for Jamie to join her, but Owen called the English woman over to where he stood, and Dani felt a stab of quickly tempered disappointment. She took another swig of the top-end alcohol, scrunching her nose at the fumes. Next to her the couch dipped, and she looked up into Hannah’s friendly face.

“How are you holding up, dear?”

Dani sighed heavily. “About as well as everyone else, I think. I just feel so horrible, this is all my fault.”

“It isn’t.” Hannah clasped her hands in her lap, looking down at the dainty glass of red liquid intently. “I think we can safely say this isn’t anyone’s fault at this stage, Ms Clayton.”

Dani took a moment to examine the woman next to her, her smooth ebony skin, and closely shaven head. The housekeeper wasn’t, Dani realised, much older than she herself – maybe in her early thirties at most, and the American wondered how it had taken her so long to notice it. There was something motherly in Hannah’s demeanour that stretched beyond her years, Dani decided, and she found herself curious as to the life that had fostered it. 

“You should tell her, you know.”

“Sorry?” Dani startled out of her thoughts. Hannah tilted her head towards the fireplace where Owen and Jamie were talking, leaning conspiratorially close together.

“You should tell Jamie how you feel.” 

“I don’t…Uh…I don’t know-“ Dani began, blushing furiously. 

“You aren’t quite as subtle as you both think.” Hannah laughed.

Dani considered her options. She was, she knew, hopelessly head over heels for the young gardener. From the first moment they’d lain eyes on each other, Dani had felt a draw, a magnetism, that made her want to be in the woman’s orbit as much as possible, and that made her thoughts when parted circle back to their time together. She’d found herself hearing titbits of news and pondering what Jamie would think of it, and on occasion spending more time on her makeup than strictly necessary when she knew the gardener was staying for dinner. She hadn’t considered, until this exact moment, how obvious she had been. “Oh god, this is embarrassing.”

“Nonsense. Its sweet.” Hannah said firmly, a twinkle in her eye. “And you should tell her, because I can guarantee that Jamie feels the same way. I’ve seen the moon-eyes she sends your way whenever she thinks no one is looking. We’ve never had so many fresh flowers before you arrived, a new bouquet practically every other day. They aren’t for me, you know.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “It’s hardly the time or place, Hannah, with all this going on.”

The housekeeper’s expression darkened. “I think its exactly both. We have no idea what _is_ going on or what will happen. The time for secrets has passed.”

Dani raised an eyebrow. “Well, that goes for both of us, don’t you think?”

“What are you pair whispering about?” Dani jumped, not having caught Jamie striding over. Owen dawdled behind, rubbing his bristly chin. He looked unhappy about something.

“Just girl talk.” Hannah said sweetly. “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

“You wound me.” Jamie said sarcastically. Behind her, Owen snorted. “ _Anyway_ , we’ve got a plan.”

“You’ve got a plan.” Owen huffed out. “I don’t agree with it at all.”

Jamie glowered at him, before turning back to the settee. “I’m going to go check out the attic. I need you three to stay here until I get back. Have a few drinks, if you like.”

Dani blinked. “Sorry, what’s the plan?” Jamie held her arms up at her sides, her expression suggesting it was obvious. “You’re kidding? Are you kidding?”

“Told you.” Owen muttered unhelpfully.

“So, the ‘plan’,” Hannah punctuated the word with exaggerated finger commas, “is you go off _on your own_ into a house full of who knows what, while we sit here and get drunk?”

Jamie breathed out an exasperated sigh. “Look, it doesn’t seem to be doing us any good going off together. I’ll nip up, have a look around, and be back in a flash. Whoever is fucking with us probably won’t even realise I’m there, they’ll be focused on you three in here.”

Dani got to her feet, hands on hips. “That is the worst plan I have ever heard, and I worked with third graders for nine years.”

“Look, I know what I’m about, ok?” Jamie gritted out. “And I’m going.”

Dani stared at her. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Jamie agreed, lowering her heckles.

“Then I’m going with you.”

“Owen, lets get a top up, shall we?” Hannah said after a tense pause. Owen offered his arm, still watching the younger women with awkward interest as they moved to give the pair some space.

“You’re not going alone.” Dani insisted. Jamie dropped her head into her hands, breathing heavily through her nose.

“Look, Poppins.” She said after a moment; her voice had returned to its normal timbre and some of the fire had fallen from her green eyes. In its place was a quiet sort of pleading. “I need you to stay here. Please.”

“Why?” 

“Whatever is going on, it’s getting serious.” Jamie swallowed, glancing back at Hannah and Owen, who were ostentatiously not looking at the arguing women. Tentatively, as though allowing Dani the option to pull away, Jamie put her hands on the governess's waist, holding her in place and close enough that they were sharing breath. Dani felt her heart hitch at the gesture; she had never been this close to the object of her affections and her body wasn’t sure how to react under the circumstances. “Something touched Owen, physically touched him. Knocked him clean to the ground. I have no idea what it is, but it isn’t just nasty illusions anymore.”

Dani ran her fingertips over Jamie’s forearms, feeling the warmth of satin-soft skin. She felt on the verge of tears. “Exactly. I should go with you. I can help.”

“I need to know you’re safe, Dani.” Jamie shook her head. “I can’t…please don’t ask me to put you in danger.”

Dani wanted to protest, to push the point that by trying to protect her Jamie was asking Dani to suffer instead. She wanted to insist, to demand, to spill the contents of her overfull heart and shove it in Jamie’s face to substantiate her reasoning. But there was a desperation to Jamie’s touch that Dani hadn’t felt before in anyone, and Dani knew that this was a burden she’d have to bear alone.

“Please be careful.” Dani saw Jamie light up in hope at her words. “I need you to come back to me. There’s things I have to tell you.”

“I know, Poppins.” Jamie closed her eyes, pressing their foreheads together. “But not yet. I want us to have better nights, so we’ll know we mean it.”

Dani felt the tears welling up, thick in her throat. “Later, then. When you come back to me.”

Jamie nodded, and Dani noticed the moisture gathering in her own eyes. “I promise.” She whispered, pressing a kiss to Dani’s forehead. Then, without looking back, she was gone. Dani stared at the doorway for a long time afterwards, listening to the sound of Jamie’s boots clomping up the stairs until they faded into silence, and feeling emptier than she’d felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To quote 28 Days Later: "This a really shit idea. You know why? Because its really OBVIOUSLY a shit idea."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk here team; this chapter includes references to childhood abuse, such as what Jamie hinted at in her Moon Flower speech. There is nothing graphic, but it is hinted at - please heed the trigger warning if its going to be too much.

“Stupid, self-sacrificing idiot.” Jamie mumbled under her breath as she crept along the corridor towards the attic, staying low and hugging the wall. She kept her torch off for stealth, going slowly to avoid furniture and trip hazards. She’d never really spent much time in the Manor itself, and certainly not on the upper floors. Her domain was the grounds, and she thought longingly of the serene safety of her quiet greenhouse as she paused in front of what she vaguely remembered as the right door. Pushing it open, she was gratified to see a shorter corridor and then a set of steps leading upwards. She took them carefully, wincing at the squeak of each board.

This, she thought as she strained her hearing into the dark space of the loft, was probably the stupidest thing she’d ever done, and with her history, that was saying something. But she’d always been the same even as a child, terrified of losing those closest to her and ready to take punishment she wasn’t owed if it would spare others the rod. 

The room opened up in front of her, cluttered and lit only by the smudge of paler darkness that was pressing against the skylight. Reluctantly, Jamie turned on the torch, blinking in the sudden brightness.

“Miles?” She rasped, turning her head this way and that. “Flora?” 

Remember that story about the dead woman who strangled her sister in this attic? Her mind offered helpfully. Jamie had been soundly teased with all the tales and legends surrounding Bly Manor when she’d first arrived, still wearing the sheen of prison and mild hopelessness, feeling foreign amongst the strange accents and endless green fields. The locals in the pub had welcomed her by good-naturedly clamouring to put the wind up the Northerner with exaggerated accounts of ghosts and ghouls, and Jamie had brushed them off with a grin and a friendly cussing. Now, hearing the wind howl just above her head and seeing the shadows dancing ominously in the torchlight, she wished she’d given it more heed.

She searched high and low while her nerve held out, even going so far as to clamber over boxes to open a long-forgotten wardrobe but with no luck. “Where are you hiding you little bastards?” the gardener hissed, letting her frustration get the better of her after her second run revealed nothing but emptiness and discarded furniture. 

With a huff, Jamie slumped onto an old antique chest. She felt more angry than scared now, an old habit that her prison therapist had said was a coping mechanism she’d developed through the years of neglect, and that Jamie knew had gotten her into trouble more times than it had helped her out of it. Sighing, she pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes, lighting one with her treasured silver Zippo. Hannah wouldn’t like it; the housekeeper had griped continuously about Lord Wingrave’s valet smoking in the house and the way the smell soaked into the wallpaper and soft furnishings; she’d made a point of banning it indoors as soon as the man had run off with the previous nanny (and a sizeable chunk of Henry Wingrave’s fortune to boot). But Hannah wasn’t there, and Jamie felt stressed – stretched thin – twanging like a sail in a harsh wind; she needed something to ground her, anchor her, and make her feel, just for a few moments, like life was normal. 

It helped. The fag glowed reassuringly, the blue fumes filling her lungs and easing some of the tension, both through the nicotine and the simple, well-practised process of lighting up and taking a drag. Jamie exhaled through her nose, mind empty, and the cigarette was halfway to her lips again when she heard the music.

It was too far off to make out, but it was there, sounding hideously macabre as it drifted, out-of-place, through the deserted halls.

With a calmness she didn’t feel, the gardener leaned down and stubbed the fag-end out under the heel of her work boot. Swallowing thickly and with a last glance around the room, she followed the noise down the stairs and into the manor beyond.

It was louder as she exited the loft, a familiar, jaunty tune that was just a touch too muffled to name, the words resting on the tip of Jamie’s tongue like skittish insects. Trying to tread lightly but no longer feeling capable of sneaking quite as well as she had before, she walked forwards, following the song into the old wing, pausing in front of the heavy double doors. The weight of anxiety that had been brewing in her innards was a mill stone now, and it took every portion of her sizeable resolve to reach over its girth and shove the doors open.

The room was a nightmare all on its own even without the events of the evening; dust sheets turned each stick of furniture into a figure, and the lightening flashing through the balcony doors made them move and twist in the corner of Jamie’s vision. The exit to the parapet balcony was open, the rushing winds blowing leaves and pouring rain through the gap. It pooled on the parquet, soaking into white sheets, and throwing detritus around the space. Jamie stepped forwards to shut the doors, cursing softly, and as soon as her foot crossed the threshold, she became aware of two things.

The first was the music, and it made her blood ice in her veins. On the long-abandoned bed side table, on top of the cloth covering, sat a transistor radio, its lights illuminating the gloom. The song it was playing Jamie recognised with painful ease. _In the summertime when the weather is high…_

The second thing she noticed, tearing her eyes away from the radio with difficulty, was that she was no longer alone. There, on the parapet, was a child. “Flora?” Jamie shouted, striding forwards, thinking only of pulling the girl inside and out of the torrential downpour that was soaking into her thin nightdress. As she got within a few feet, the torchlight landed on the small body, and Jamie stopped in her tracks.

The child wasn’t Flora. She was older – about 11 or 12, although slight and skinny enough that it was hard to tell without really looking. She was shivering, and covering her bare twig arms Jamie could see scrapes and bruises. Slowly, with growing realisation, Jamie dragged her eyes up to the child’s face. Under the unkempt thatch of mousy brown hair, mournful green eyes regarded her with stubborn fear.

“Fuck.” Jamie whispered involuntarily. She took a few steps closer, and the child moved back. Weary of startling the girl, Jamie held her hands up. “Hey now, its ok. I’m not going to hurt you.” The kid watched her with mistrust, and Jamie couldn’t blame her – she knew, _knew_ in every sense of the word, that this had been a continual lie in the young ‘uns life. The rain was colder than it should have been for a summer storm, and the gardener was instantly drenched to the skin as she edged outside. She paid it no mind. The girl was hovering uncertainly in the corner of the parapet, shrinking down.

At Jamie’s back, the volume of the radio increased, sharp and sudden. She spun quickly, her eyes landing on something that sent her mind into a swirl of panic. In the middle of the bedroom stood the man she’d seen in Flora’s room. He was almost comically large, his head stooped to avoid banging the ceiling, and his chest was wider than three average sized men. The stench of sour beer hit her nostrils.

A hand closed in hers. Jamie looked down, eyes wide in terror, straight into the face of the girl. At this distance, it was obvious that she was under-nourished rather than just small for her age. There was a fading bruise on her cheek, and she was staring silently up with a mixture of fear and unquenchable rage. Unthinking, Jamie pushed the child behind her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, just stay by me.”

The man was closer now, though he hadn’t appeared to move. She could hear his breathing over the racket of the music, coarse and heavy and stinking like a brewery. His face was nondescript; it seemed to change and morph of its own volition, never settling enough to pick out features. It didn’t matter; he was a threat, and Jamie was going to deal with it.

“Back the fuck up.” She growled, hefting the torch in her hand. The weight was less than Jamie would have liked but a comfort, nevertheless. “Come any closer and I’ll wrap this around your head so hard it’ll make yer eyes spin.”

On the radio, the song ended. The lights flickered, and then, like a twisted dream, it started all over again. _In the summertime when the weather is high…_

Jamie realised it had been a mistake to let it distract her when she felt thick fingers close around her biceps. The stranger was in her face, towering over her, his unsettled features splitting into a foul-smelling grimace. At her back, the child whimpered as Jamie lost her grip on her small hand. Jamie growled; she had grown since that summer in 1970 when her life had ended and restarted as something much worse, and she’d fought more fights than anyone could count since then. She kicked out, thrusting her forehead forward into…nothing. In mounting horror, she realised her foot had passed through the spectre as if he was made of fog, while simultaneously his hold had tightened. One of his hands started to move across her belly, and she flashed back to the countless dingy houses and the stale, perverted men with bitter wives who had been paid to take care of her but in reality, had used her up until there was almost nothing but anger left. With a renewed drive of fury, she thrashed again, her freed arm punching and scrabbling and never leaving a mark. She closed her eyes finally, willing it to be over, tears of frustration and sadness mixing with the rainwater and pouring down her cheeks.

“Get away from her!”

\----------------------------------------------------

Dani had lasted as long as she could. She’d wanted to honour her promise to Jamie; it was a simple enough promise, to do nothing, but it had torn and ripped at her heart until she could hardly breath.

Hannah and Owen seemed to be faring little better. They were huddled together on the sofa, Owen’s arm protectively around the woman’s shoulders. They weren’t speaking; there was nothing to be said, and anyway, all their ears were trained on the upper floor of the house.

When she was confident that neither were paying her any mind, Dani took her chance, slipping out of the room with more stealth than she realised she possessed. The house felt darker than it had before, and as she snuck up the stairs, she could feel unseen eyes watching her. 

At the top step, she turned towards the attic, wishing she’d thought to grab a torch and hoping that whatever she bumped into would turn out to be Jamie and not anything worse. As her hand settled on the doorknob, she heard a noise. It sounded like scuffling, and it was coming from the old wing. She listened harder. 

“Get off me!” came a voice, shrill and high, but unmistakably Jamie.

Dani ran, not caring what might be lurking around the corner, only conscious that the woman she loved was in trouble and needed Dani’s help. Charging through the open doors into the Wingrave’s old bedroom, her eyes struggled to make sense of what they were seeing in the darting torchlight.

Jamie was flailing, arms and legs lashing out at the air in front of her. She was sobbing big, ugly tears, and she looked younger than Dani had ever seen her appear. In front of her struggling form, separated by a meter or more, stood a man, watching with apparent indifference to Jamie’s agony. He was around six feet tall, and slim, and he had his back to Dani.

“Get away from her!” Dani shrieked, alarmed to hear that it had come out more as a scream than a threat.

Jamie stopped struggling, dropping to her knees as though she were a rag doll thrown to the floor by an unruly toddler. With ominous unhurriedness, the man turned. 

Dani gasped low in her throat. Edmund, her long dead fiancé, faced her without emotion. Dani could feel his intent on her despite his glasses, the ones which should be sitting broken in the bottom of her suitcase, shining with the glow of an unnatural light, such as might emanate from a semi barrelling down the street at forty miles an hour. It was a vision that had haunted her dreams for many months after the accident, and which had turned every night into her own personal hell. Seeing it now, wrought flesh in her waking hours, was a new and terrible horror.

Jamie wheezed, dragging herself to her feet, one hand held out in supplication. “Dani, run.” She grunted.

Dani set her jaw, drawing on every ounce of bravery that she could muster. “You get away from her, Eddie. She’s got nothing to do with this, this is between you and me.”

The creature didn’t acknowledge that she had spoken, just continued to idle in between Jamie and the means of her escape. Dani glared. “Come on then, lets do this. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To punish me for not loving you? For _killing_ you?”

She blinked. Eddie was gone. Dani exhaled for the first time in what felt like minutes, raising her foot to take a step towards the gardener, thinking of little but getting them both out of that room and back into the safety of their friends’ orbit. The hand that closed possessively around her shoulder, then, came as a surprise. She pivoted slow, already knowing what she would see before raising her eyes to look right into Eddie’s expressionless face. 

She didn’t have time to scream. Didn’t even have time to react, other than to feel once again the cold guilt of Edmund’s death consume her whole from the inside out, before Jamie was on her, dragging Dani from the room with a single-minded belligerence that drove her to barge the ghost of Edmund O’Mara out of the way and sent them barrelling full tilt down the hallway.

Eddie was on top of the stairs. Both women pulled up short at the sight, turning to run back the way they’d come. Eddie was in the corridor behind them, his glasses abnormally bright in the gloom. Dani heard a scream, unsure whether it was coming from her or Jamie.

“Fuck off! Just fuck off, you stupid big bastard!” The gardener hollered, and Dani wondered through her fright what Jamie was seeing that she wasn’t. “Fucking come on, this way!” Jamie tugged Dani’s arm, dragging her into the nearest doorway and up into the darkness of the attic, slamming the door behind them.

They didn’t hear over the commotion the sound of Hannah and Owen calling their names as they made their way up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can confirm in answer to all your lovely comments on the last chapter: No, they have never seen a horror movie. Jamie was too busy being cool (and serving time); Hannah finds horror distasteful; and Owen...well, there's no cinema in Bly. Dani did watch Psycho that one time, but she had to watch it through her fingers and now she refuses to watch anything but comedies. 
> 
> So now you know.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait; it has been a hell of a week, and as you'll see this is a beast of a chapter - its probably the most plot heavy chapter we've had so far, and its a good 2000 words longer than the others. During the course of it, I decided to rewrite Jamie's monologue; I know that is sacrilege but I wasn't comfortable copying the real one into my own work, so if it puts your teeth on edge, feel free to jib that section off and go watch the proper, much better Moonflower speech. You can come back after, and we'll say no more about it...Enjoy!

Jamie pressed all her weight into the door, using her shoulder to hold it shut, expecting at any moment the monster outside to start forcing his way in. “Get up the stairs, Dani,” she hissed through ragged breaths, “you need to hide.”

It took less than a second before Dani was with her, palms pressed against the wood. “I’m not leaving you again. We’re in this together.”

Jamie grumbled under her breath but didn’t push it. After a few moments of uneasy calm, she pursed her lips, carefully lifting herself off the door. “Think he’s gone?” she asked, straining to hear any indication that the aberration was just waiting for them to let their guard down. There was no noise coming through the thick oak, the rasp of their breaths strangely loud in its absence.

“It seems like it.” Dani stood upright with a shaky breath, dusting her hands absent-mindedly on her jumper. “What now?”

Jamie frowned into the pitch darkness. She couldn’t see the au pair, had dropped her torch when the man had been shaking her like a rag doll, but she could hear her inhaling and exhaling shakily, and could feel the weight of her fear. “Let’s go upstairs, bit lighter up there I reckon.”

As Jamie had promised, there was a weak trickle of light drifting through the skylight, helped by the frequent sparks of lightening that seemed to be trying to split the air around the house with hammers of electricity. In the dishwater gloom, both women squinted into the corners of the room, scared of what might be lurking in wait.

“Looks like we’re alone.” Jamie said, her voice grave. Dani watched as she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a packet. The sound of the lighter being struck and the flare of flame that followed seemed shocking in the sullen atmosphere of the loft. “Don’t mind if I smoke do you?” the gardener asked, already puffing out a cloud of grey-blue.

Dani shook her head. “Only if I can have one.”

“Poppins, you rebel.” Jamie quipped, trying for levity despite the crack in her voice. She offered up the box, and Dani took one. The other woman stepped close into her space holding the lighter between them, the glow dancing on her skin and making her eyes sparkle. Dani leaned towards the little flame and lit her own, letting the taste coat her tongue and throat. She hadn’t smoked in years; Eddie hadn’t liked it, and she suddenly felt the irrational urge to smoke the whole pack in defiance.

“So what’s next, Miss We’ve-Got-A-Plan?” Dani asked after she’d taken a calming drag. 

Jamie ignored the mild teasing. “We smoke these and then we get back out there, I suppose.” 

Both women glanced towards the dark recess of the stairs. “I don’t know if I can.” Dani said truthfully. “Face that again, I mean.”

Jamie looked at her with understanding, reaching to take her hand and giving a comforting press. “You can, you’re the bravest person I know.”

Dani snorted through a haze of smoke. “You must not know many people then.”

Jamie frowned. “Don’t sell yourself short, Dani. You lost someone who was the cornerstone of your life, and you carried on. Christ, you moved to a whole new country on your own, and still managed to give those kids more love and care than most of us will ever get. You’re stronger than just about anyone I’ve ever met.”

Dani gave a small smile; the way Jamie was looking at her, all stern confidence and honesty, was a unique balm that she hadn’t known she needed until she had it. Dani knew, deep in her bones, that she was braver than most would think; the world saw little more than her sunny nature and pastel-tinted fashion choices, her way with small children and easy, girl-next-door smile. But at 28, she’d been through a lifetime of dull, throbbing pain, an imploding of the life she’d allowed to cocoon around her, and a crashing journey of self-discovery that had broken apart the old certainties and used the pieces to build her world up afresh into something she could own, could look back on and feel pride for. The guilt she carried for it in her chest was little more than the black mould gathering in the corners, the only blight on an otherwise pristine home. Yet hearing it qualified by this stoic, complex woman was validating beyond belief. It was, she knew, partly because Jamie rarely gave out praise, and never unless it was earned. She spoke the way she saw, blunt and endlessly truthful, and when she did, it made it impossible not to take her words to heart.

“Thank you, Jamie.” Dani whispered softly, trying to convey the depth of her gratitude in the warmth of her gaze. 

“No problem.” Jamie sniffed, quickly shoving the cigarette to her lips, eyes on her shoes.

“So,” Dani continued, keen to break any awkwardness before it began, “what was that, down there?”

Jamie regarded her with an unreadable expression. “Hard to say.” She responded guardedly after a long minute.

Dani bit her lip. “It wasn’t Eddie for you, was it?” 

Jamie blew smoke from her nostrils, the cloud hovering around her head in the poorly ventilated space of the attic. “No, it wasn’t.” she agreed eventually. 

Dani studied her face; Jamie’s brow was crinkled, and her teeth were clamped hard together, making her jawline jut. She shifted her weight uneasily, no longer meeting Dani’s eyes. “Do you want to tell me?”

Jamie huffed. “Not really. Don’t reckon you’ll let it go until I do though, eh?”

“I won’t make you do anything you aren’t comfortable with. But I think it might help, to talk about it.”

Jamie looked at her, green eyes calculating. “You really mean that don’t you Poppins?”

“Of course.” Dani tugged the woman’s hand, pulling her closer and lacing their fingers together. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

The gardener was close enough now that Dani could smell the sweat from the woman’s work day and the perennial crushed-grass scent that felt so uniquely _Jamie_. In the half-light, her green eyes looked dark and moist, narrowed in an unplaceable emotion – anger, maybe, or sadness.

“I think it was my foster dads.”

Dani frowned. “Foster dads?”

Jamie sighed. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Dani. I’ve got a past.”

“We’ve all got one of those.” Dani said quietly. Jamie baulked, pulling her hand back. When she spoke, her voice came out loud and frustrated.

“Not like this one. You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.” Dani said with equal firmness. She glanced around, finding an old crate, and sitting down with her hands folded attentively in her lap. “I’m here and I’m listening. Tell me.”

Jamie looked at her, and for once Dani could see the uncertainty there. Fear, not like terror of earlier, but the long-learned anxiousness of being judged. Finally, she nodded, taking a deep breath. “Ok.”

Dani watched intently as the woman found a seat on an old dusty rocking chair. When she began to talk, her tone had lost its reticence, and she gazed firmly ahead, as though avoiding having to witness her companion’s reactions.

“Mum was Louise. Dad was Dennis. Dennis and Louise married young, and a year later my brother Denny was born, then me. Reckon they married too young, as it happens, because after she had me, I don’t remember them being in the same room together unless they were screaming at each other. Louise was barely more than a kid herself, and she didn’t have much of an idea how to raise children. Didn’t have much of an interest in anything except which of the men in town would give her a bit of attention, if we’re being honest, and dad…well, dad had taken a job in the mines and I guess it was easier down there in that dank coalmine than up top where people laughed at him. They did laugh though, even if he couldn’t hear it, because everyone in that shit town knew that the new baby, my little brother Mikey, wasn’t his. And I think now, how bad it must have been, the shame that must have driven him back down into the dirt where there wasn’t a single leaf or branch or flower, just lumps and lumps of dead things, pressed tightly enough that they’ll burn if you put a match to them, and fucking soot that’ll coat your lungs and kill you dead yourself. Anyway, the locals treated us all like shit. They called Louise a whore and the kids at school called her daughter one too. Even Denny joins in, saving his own skin by throwing his own mum and sister under the bus. And then in ’67 I come home from school to find mum gone, without leaving so much as a note, and the baby is screaming because he’s alone and hungry and he doesn’t understand what’s happening. So I took care of him, and I took care of dad when ever he resurfaced, but I’m just a kid. A real kid, barely 8 years old and I don’t know what I’m doing. Then one day there’s an accident. I was scrapping with Denny in the kitchen and knocked a pan over, scalded me pretty bad and social services got involved. The kids got taken away and we were split up. I can still see little Mikey struggling as they put him in the car and all I can think is “You did that. He’s your little brother and you’re all he’s got, and you were supposed to protect him”.” Jamie shook her head, as though trying to push through the mist of memory. “Anyway, then its foster care, and you’d think you’d get the right sort of people wanting that job. Christian charity and all that. But they’re paying a few quid for it, and the social aren’t doing the checks they should cause there’s just too many of us. So then its 5 years of dirty old men with angry, frustrated wives, taking the government’s money and at best neglecting us and a worst getting handsy, in one way or another. Never knew there were so many ways a bloke could hurt you until I was 11 and got dumped in my first bastard home.”

Dani felt tears in the corners of her eyes, imagining young Jamie, scared and alone and needing someone to love her, but getting only abuse. She willed herself to hold them in, refusing to take away from Jamie’s pain by overlaying it with her own.

Jamie ran a hand through her tangles of brown hair. “Got out of there as soon as I hit 16, took the pittance the social were offering and spent it on a train ticket to London. Figured I might have more luck there.” She scoffed. “Turns out there is a world of trouble you can get into in the big city, and still no one gives a shit. Ended up serving a few years. Got involved with a girl who convinced me to take the fall for some pot she’d been moving, but if I’m honest if it hadn’t been for that it would have been something else. Thieving, probably. Fighting, maybe. I wasn’t…I wasn’t a good person Dani. I hadn’t learned how to be, didn’t know anything but struggle and anger and that if you let your guard down, even for a second, people will fuck you over. Every last one. But turns out prison was the best thing that could have happened to me. Started gardening while I was in there, decent work for idle hands and all that, and I love it. I really fucking love it. I can pour my time and attention into a plant and see the results, I can tell at a glance what a plant needs to thrive and provide it without having to take a kicking. Taught me a bit of patience too, it turns out. You can’t rush a flower to bloom or a sapling to grow. You just have to wait and show it a bit of tender loving care. Bit like people, it turns out.”

She looked up finally, chancing a glance sideways, and there was a twitch to the muscles around the eyes, as though surprised that the au pair was still there, still looking at her with an understanding, loving intensity. “So yeah. That’s it. My probation officer set me up a job here at the Manor, and I haven’t looked back. But that thing down there…that bloke down there, I can’t tell you what it is because it could any one of those bastards who got their kicks bullying scared, bruised little kids, or the odd prison guard who took a bit too much joy in having a bunch of vulnerable women under his control. But I do know I won’t let it hurt us again, Dani. I won’t. Not us or the girl, the girl with…with my eyes. She looked so small and scared and I think…I think she was me, when I was just a kid myself. And I’m going to do what I wasn’t old enough to then. I’m going to put a fucking stop to it.”

Dani softly laid her hand over Jamie’s. “Thank you for telling me.”

Jamie raised her eyebrows. “Thank you for not having a freak out. Haven’t told anyone all of that, not even Hannah. Well. My prison psychologist, but she don’t count, really. Feels like I can trust you with my secrets, Poppins. I can't remember the last time I could say that.”

Awkwardly, Dani shuffled her crate nearer until she was close enough to press her forehead to Jamie’s. “Jamie…” she whispered, lost suddenly for words but desperate to be there, to feel as close as possible.

Jamie sighed lazily, the air making Dani’s lips prickle. Dani’s resolve snapped then, any anxiety about rejection or desire to put off for another night, another time, vanishing at the smell of cigarette smoke and cut grass. She pushed her lips against Jamie’s, a little too hard and clumsy as first kisses are liable to be. Jamie gave a small hum of surprise before moving forwards, meeting Dani’s mouth with equal ardour. The horror of the night around them slipped away, Dani’s world focusing into a pinpoint that consisted solely of her and Jamie, of their passion and of sheer, unmitigated hope, pressed between their hot mouths like a flower in a book. It was, Dani knew, the best kiss of her life, rubbing away all the half-hearted, unasked for kisses that had come before it with sheer force of want. 

Pulling back, Jamie took a steadying breath, her hands holding Dani’s face steady. “Wait, Poppins, wait. Are you sure?”

In response, Dani lunged forwards once more, focusing once again on the welcoming, wet warmth of the other woman’s mouth. She though she heard a “thank fuck” mumbled against her lips, and she would have recognised it – maybe broken the kiss long enough to laugh and make a teasing quip – had not two things happened in quick succession.

From downstairs came the sound of a woman screaming, a deep, mournful note that seemed to echo and magnify itself as it continued; and over Jamie’s shoulder, watching behind shining glasses with an emotionless expression, was Edmund, his hand reaching treacle slow towards them.

\----------------------------------------

Hannah would, if she were being hand-on-heart honest, have liked nothing more than to stay tucked under Owen’s arm in the cosy warmth of the lounge, breathing in the scent of him and the heat of him, basking in the knowledge that yes, he was ok, and yes, they were together, safe and whole. But of all the things Hannah Grose knew about herself, first and foremost was that she was not the sort of person to hide away while other people suffered. 

Which was why, as soon as Owen had asked quietly where Dani was, Hannah had made up her mind to go and find her. It had been hours now since the electrics blew out, and the storm showed no signs of abating or even of moving slightly on, still roaring ferociously around the house and shaking the windows in their leaden frames. It couldn’t be long til morning, but something hanging in the air told the housekeeper that even waiting the last short stretch until dawn would be too long for her younger colleagues. 

The hallway dark, and as Hannah glanced towards the front door, just for a second, she thought she saw a smiling face in the oak, grinning smugly back at her, the whiteness of its teeth and eyes standing out against the dark-varnished wood. The lightening struck overhead, and it was gone. Above their heads came the sound of running feet and indistinct shouting, and then the clap of a door slamming to like a gunshot. The silence that followed was eerily profound.

“Come on Mrs Grose, let’s check it out. Think they mind need another pair of hands.” Owen smiled wanly down at her, his jaw set in resignation. 

They made their way up the stairs in single file and hand-in-hand, and Hannah would have felt foolish to be a grown woman clinging to a man who was, to all intents and purposes, no more than a workmate, if it weren’t for the undeniable comfort it brought. 

“Dani? Jamie?” Hannah called out, leaning around Owen to look left and right along the first-floor landing. “Where are you?”

The house was quiet, settled, the emptiness feeling thick and almost touchable, like static electricity hanging in the air. The air tasted metallic, and Hannah realised that she’d been carrying the flavour all evening, lingering on her tongue like copper pennies.

“Do you think-“ Owen began, leaning over the guardrail to peer onto the floor below.

In Hannah’s peripheral vision, she saw movement. It was slight, and not particularly fast, and when she turned her head she gasped. There, down by the dead end of the corridor nearest the children’s rooms, stood Miles Wingrave. He was still in the clothes he had been wearing at dinner, and his face was contorted. He’s shouting, Hannah thought; the boy was red in the face with the effort of making himself heard, but no matter how hard he screamed, no sound was coming out. Thoughtlessly, Hannah drifted forwards, her arms open to snatch the boy into her arms, the relief at seeing the child’s longed-for face wiping away any caution.

She was within ten paces when Miles’s eyes went wide. He pointed at her with unrestrained terror and dashed haphazardly into his bedroom. “Miles! Wait!” Hannah called, picking up her pace.

“Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.” 

That voice, that damned voice that she’d longed for and cursed on so many miserable nights and lonely, cold mornings; it sent her heart into overdrive, beating wildly in her chest.

“Sam?”

He stood in the hallway that she’d just walked down, a smirk on his handsome face that showed his beautiful white teeth and a gleam in his eyes that she didn’t recognise. He was wearing a suit, a cheap one, and she felt a lump form in her throat as she realised it was the same she’d brought him for their wedding, all those years ago when they were young and barely making ends meet.

“Look at you.” Sam said, and there was a cruel edge to his words that she hadn’t heard before, even in the painful last moments of their marriage when it had seemed the agony of loosing him was tearing her world apart. He stepped closer and without her apparent intervention her own feet followed suit. “You’ve grown old.”

“I’m 33.” Hannah scoffed. “Hardly _old_.”

His hand came up to trace her face. “You were always old, even when we were young. Always wanting to mother me, as if that’s what any man wants.”

Hannah recoiled, hurt blooming in her stomach. The man tutted and grabbed her chin, turning it back towards him. “That’s why I left. She lets me feel like a man should. She’s so pretty, it’s a shame you never got to see her in all her glory. The things we do together would make your toes curl.”

“Stop it.” Hannah gritted out, trying to move back but finding herself frozen to the spot. “I don’t want to hear this.”

Sam laughed, and Hannah frowned. That wasn’t his laugh. He had always had a magnetism in his mirth that drew her in, a warm sort of honey that made her crave more and more and more. Now it was cold, tinged with disdain, like a childhood bully in the playground, pressing to find out what buttons would make you weep. “And I don’t need to tell you, because I know you’ve pictured it all a hundred times.”

“You can’t hurt me anymore, Sam.” Hannah answered, but her voice was small, laden with all the insecurities that the collapse of her marriage had dug deep into her psyche. 

“Do you think?” He said, his hand drifting lower until it bracketed her throat. 

“Stop.” She said, but fear was tinging her words now, and in front of her eyes the face began to shift; the skin changed from the golden brown of her ex-husband to a pale white, the hair growing and melting into a slick, brown coif. There, standing in front of her where Sam had been, was Peter Quint. 

“How about now? Can I hurt you now?” He said, his Scottish accent thick and devoid of any sort of kindness. “Maybe you don’t feel enough for that husband of yours? Maybe that’s why he left, he was sick of your frigid pearl-clutching.”

The mournful wail was a shock, and more so when she realised it was pouring unbidden from her own mouth. The hand around her throat was closing, tightening, and the scream petered out into a whimper, and then nothing at all. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even struggle. It was as though all the fight that had been in her had been sapped from her limbs at the sight of Sam and now Henry Wingrave’s disgraced valet, the one who had tried so hard to steal away the last nanny at any price, whether that price be the woman’s dignity, freedom, or happiness. Hannah had tried to stop it, to warn the woman and talk her down, but to no avail, and the guilt of her failure had followed her for a long while after they made their escape.

Unnervingly, like the slow creep of vines, the face changed again until it was Sam throttling her. “No,” he said, smiling that same strange smirk, “I think I _should_ be the one to do it. Put you out of the misery I put you-“

There was a whoosh, and something passed incredibly close to her face; in Sam’s place, a nondescript patch of black shadow dissolved, evaporating into the air as insubstantial as mist. In its place stood Jamie, Dani at her back, holding a candlestick from the hallway table. She looked rageful, but her expression changed when she saw Hannah doubled over, trying to get her breath.

“Hannah!” Dani cried, moving to take the woman in her arms.

“Miles.” The housekeeper gasped out. “He’s in there!”

“Hannah-“ Jamie began, but Dani was already gone, ducking through the darkened door of Mile’s bedroom. “Shit!”

“Go!” Hannah called, shoving her friend forwards, before stumbling back down the hall, leaning her weight on the panelling as she went.

She got as far as Flora’s room, the door ajar. From inside came sobbing; great, gasping sobs, enough to push aside momentarily the nightmare of the last few minutes. Peering into the doorway, squinting against the darkness, she saw a body slumped on the floor.

“Owen?” She asked tentatively. Warily she approached, expecting at any moment for his outline to change, to become just another ghost from her past. “Owen?”

The cook looked up, and Hannah almost wished it had been Sam. Owen’s eyes were red rimmed, his face stained with tears, and in the depths, she could see nothing but despair. 

His left arm raised slowly, pointing at something she couldn’t quite make out in the room. “M-mum.” He groaned, his voice broken.

Hannah bent to scoop him up, to tug him into an embrace or a kiss, anything to take the sorrow out of his expression. She got halfway when the bed creaked ominously, and Sam, face twisted into a macabre grin, loomed forwards.

“He’ll never love you, Hannah. How could anyone love an old maid like you?”

Owen gargled in his throat, slumping forwards into child’s pose. Sam moved closer, appearing like he had all the time in the world. “Pathetic, both of you. Maybe you do deserve each other. Maybe when you’re finished I’ll let your corpses lie together. Rot together.” 

Hannah growled. It was one thing to drag out her own trauma, to punish her with her own mistakes, but quite another to torture the man she loved. She rose to her full height, chin held high. “You get away from him, whatever you are.”

Sam’s eyes twinkled. “Or what?”

“Or…or…else.” Hannah finished lamely. Sam laughed, the guffaw growing louder as she stepped in front of Owen where he lay, drowning in his misery. “I don’t know what you did to Owen, but you’re not going to do it anymore. Get out.”

Sam raised his hand, fingers coming to dance over the cross Hannah wore. “I remember buying you this. Is it working, do you think?”

At her back came the sound of running feet, but Hannah didn’t turn, didn’t even blink, just continued to stare the man down with a look of unbridled disgust.

“We’ve got them, we’ve got the kids, we’ve got to go n- Oh fuck me!” Jamie’s shout was loud, and Sam narrowed his eyes. Almost imperceptibly, under the skin, something moved. It was as though a cloud in which one has seen an image has shifted, ever so slightly, and the picture you were seeing wasn’t the same anymore. As though Sam couldn’t decide what he was meant to be.

Arms closed around her, pulling her backwards. “Come on, Hannah, come on.” Dani was yelling into her ear, over and over again like a mantra. Hannah didn’t respond, her eyes trained on her husband as he casually and unhurriedly followed them along the hallway, down the stairs, stopping midway as Dani dragged her bodily from the door. As the wood closed in her face, Hannah thought she saw him blow a kiss, and just for a second, he was Peter Quint after all.

\----------------------------------------------------

Jamie’s heart fell through the bottom of her chest as Dani ran away, chasing the possibility of her young charge with the single mindedness that Jamie usually found endearing. She looked quickly at Hannah, gratified to see the older woman wave her away and in doing so allowing her to follow Dani with a clean conscience. 

She pounded into Miles’s bedroom, eyes wide and instantly on alert. Dani had her back to her, facing the window, unmoving. “Dani?” Jamie hissed. “We need to go.”

Dani turned; she looked anguished. “They were right here, Jamie. I saw them. I saw them both, _right here_.”

Jamie inched closer, hand held out and gesturing for the American to follow her. “Its just the ghosts Dani. Like Edmund. We aren’t safe here.”

Dani groaned, putting her hands to her head, winding her fingers in the blonde strands, and tugging. Is this what it feels like to go crazy? She wondered. Whatever had come in with the storm, it was trying to drive them all insane, she was sure of it. “They were in this room!” She insisted, a note of hysteria entering her tone.

Jamie hesitated, unsure how to proceed. Part of her brain was screaming at her just to grab the au pair and make a run for it, but the larger part, the part that had watched the Wingrave children grow and flourish and overcome the grief of losing both parents quashed the human instinct to flee. “Where exactly?”

“Here.” Dani waved her arms around the patch of carpet she was currently standing on. 

Jamie walked into the rectangle of light afforded by the large windows. “I can’t see them, Dani. Can you see them now?”

Dani shook her head. “They were right there.” She mumbled, tears finally breaking free and rolling down her cheeks.

“Ok.” Jamie nodded, her hand rubbing soothing circles on Dani’s back. “Ok, we’ll look again. Maybe they’re-“

The flash of lightening was a large one, and outside, across the estate, Jamie saw a tree burst into flames as it struck. She stumbled from the shock, and as she did so, she saw them. Two small bodies, standing there on the rug, frightened faces mouthing as though trying to scream underwater, arms reaching up, imploring, begging. Jamie lunged forwards, the world around her seeming to slow down, time easing to a trickle, focused on nothing but those child-sized figures waving for help. Her hands closed on stick-like forearms at the same moment the lightening faded.

“Oh my god.” She heard Dani whisper in disbelief, and then, louder, “Oh my god!”

In Jamie’s arms, Miles and Flora shook like leaves in a hurricane, their hearts beating fast and hard, like the hearts of the birds the gardener sometimes found mauled by cats, scared but clinging onto each shred of life with wild desperation.

“You’re here!” Dani was saying, pulling Flora from Jamie’s grip. The little girl whimpered, burying her face in her nanny’s neck, and howling out a stream of unintelligible words, fuelled only by her distress.

Jamie looked down at her hand where it was wrapped around Miles’s arm, then up to the boys stricken face. Without waiting another second, Jamie pulled him into a bear hug, wrapping herself as tightly round his body as she dared. It took a moment to realise that he was speaking, mumbling between tears into the musty, work-stained material of her tank top. “What?” She asked, pulling his body away from her enough so that she could hear what he was saying. 

“We were here the whole time, right here, and you couldn’t see us. We screamed and shouted, and you just ignored us, the whole time.” 

Jamie swallowed, searching his face for any hint of dishonesty. She found none, and, unsure of what response to give, pulled Miles back into her chest. “Won’t happen again, Miles. It won’t.”

There was a tap on her shoulder. “We need to go, now. Let’s get Hannah and Owen and get the hell out of here.” Dani was already racing towards the door, Flora held tight in her arms. Wobbling, Jamie followed suit, Miles clutched to her chest. Their footsteps pounded along the wooden floor.

The corridor was empty, but they followed the sound of a one-sided conversation to the next bedroom along.

“We’ve got them, we’ve got the kids, we’ve got to go n- Oh fuck me!”

Inside Hannah was posturing, squaring up to…Jamie’s blood went cold. Face to face with her friend was the phantom of her nightmares, tall, and wide, and disgusting; at his feet, she could see Owen slumped. Dani had stilled a little way in front of her, but only for a moment before she dived forwards, bodily dragging Hannah away. Jamie had no choice but to put Miles down to allow her to manhandle the grown man to his feet, his body loose and ungainly. She didn't have time to worry about it, the only concern getting the three of them out of that room and away from the danger that had been plaguing them. “Don’t let go of my belt, you hear me?” she growled in the boy’s face, not waiting for his agreement before they were on the move again.

She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, didn’t dare turn back to see if whatever it was was closing in on them. They made it to the stairs half a second before Dani and Hannah, clattering down, Owen’s feet mercifully moving even if he still seemed woefully dazed. The weight on her belt that told her that Miles was still hanging on was a burst of relief, and as they made it through the front door, Jamie yanked it delightedly shut.

“We made it.” She gasped, laughter bubbling up in her throat. “We fucking made it!”

She was bending to pull Miles into her arms again, brain already in her Land Rover and down the road towards the safety of the village, when she saw the woman.

She stood in the centre of the path, her once-white nightdress see through in the downpour and her jet-black hair plastered lank to an uncommonly pretty face. She looked furious, crystal blue eyes darkened with rage, and her hand, scuffed with dirt and mud up to the elbow, was wrapped around Dani’s throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!
> 
> Hill House references, anyone?


	7. Chapter 7

Owen stared, the heavy rain battering his leather jacket and running in rivulets down his face and neck, soaking into his shirt. He hesitated, just for a moment, but it was long enough for Jamie to shove Miles into his arms. She had a look of unadulterated murder on her face.

“Put her down!” The gardener was screaming, striding forwards with her fists balled. Hardly noticed in the uproar, Flora scrambled free of her governess and ran, crying, towards the other grown-ups. Hannah picked her up, pressing her face into her chest to shield the little girl as much as possible from whatever was about to happen. Owen saw it in virtual slow motion: Jamie’s hands tugging at Dani and pushing at the stranger clasping her throat, and then Jamie being batted to the floor as though she were barely more than a nuisance instead of 5 feet 3 inches of solid rage.

“Take Miles and go!” he hissed, pressing the shaking boy into Hannah’s embrace alongside his sobbing sister, and racing to help in whatever way he could.

“Owen!” Hannah shouted, fear lacing her cry. She dithered, unsure what to do for the best. Flora gripped tighter around her neck, and that made the choice for her. She turned, sagging under the weight of the two bodies, and stumbled into the night.

“Stop it!” Owen bellowed as soon as he got close to the scuffle, reaching to clamp a hand on the attacker’s shoulder. Under the thin material of her nightdress, the skin was ice cold, covered in a greenish sheen. She smelled pungent, stagnant, like the bottom of an overgrown pond. “Put her down and piss off!” He said again, his voice dripping with authority that he didn’t feel. The woman regarded him with cold disdain, while Dani gurgled and sputtered, the tips of her toes all that were saving her from choking.

“No.” The woman answered curtly, her accent clipped. Ignoring the man trying to hold her back, she stepped forwards with a measured gait, dragging the au pair behind her.

“What the _fuck_?” Jamie growled, scrambling to her feet. Owen was still tugging on the stranger’s arms, her shoulders, dress, anything to get her to stop, but she paid him no mind. Thrusting the door open, the woman stepped through, flinging Dani to the ground in front of her. The blonde skidded across the floor, clutching at her throat, and gasping for air. Jamie leapt to her, placing herself between the danger and her lover. “You stay where you are! Don’t come anywhere bloody near us!”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “I demand to know who you are and why you are in my home.”

“Your home?” Owen asked incredulously.

She bared her teeth, pearly white. “Yes, my home! I am Viola Lloyd; I am the Lady of Bly Manor and you will show me the respect I am owed!”

“Look, love, I don’t care who you are or what you’re on,” Jamie scoffed, “but we are having a really, really shit night. We don’t have time for this and trust me, _you_ do not want to be in this house.”

“Viola…Lloyd…” Dani rasped, pushing up to her elbows. “You can’t be…”

Viola stepped forwards menacingly. “How dare you question me.”

“Viola Lloyd…” Dani continued, struggling to stand with the help of Jamie and Owen, “Viola Lloyd…is dead.”

Viola looked affronted. “No, I’m not.” A flicker passed over her fine features, just a tiny sprinkle of doubt, and she repeated with less certainty, “I’m…I’m not.”

“Your grave is in the church.” Dani continued. Over her head, Jamie and Owen shared a glance. Then, as one, they each grabbed one of Dani’s elbows and began to back away.

“No.” Viola repeated, lifting her hands to her face. Under the muck that coated her skin, she somehow managed to pale further. “I don’t…it doesn’t…”

Dani pulled away from her friends. “We can’t keep running. We need to get to the bottom of this, and she might be able to help.”

A few feet away, Viola had begun to turn very slowly around in loose circles, staring at her surroundings with a harrowed expression. “The storm…and she…she covered…and I…” she mumbled to no one in particular.

“Yeah, or this could be another trick.” Jamie whispered heatedly. “I mean, come on – some dead bird shows up with all the answers, it’s a bit on the nose isn’t it?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Dani demanded. Jamie pursed her lips. “Owen?” The man shook his head. “Well then.”

“The storm rolled in, and the air tasted like blood.” The companions looked up; Viola had ceased to spin and was gaping at them with wide, watery eyes that on a less bolshy personality could be described as fear. “It was summer. It was so hot; the servants were scared that the sweating sickness would be on us. They hung herbs in all the windows and doorways, you could hardly walk through without carrying lavender dust away with you.” A wistful expression graced her face, and she wrapped bony arms around her torso, wobbling from side to side on the spot. “I felt I was queen of all I surveyed. This house, my husband, my daughter, my…” her eyes trailed up the stairs to where two portraits had hung since before living memory. “Perdita, my sister, she was as my twin, my other half, though there were years between out births.”

“Viola? Ms Lloyd?” Dani asked tentatively, edging forwards. “Do you know what’s happening here?”

Viola appeared dazed, and when she spoke, her words seemed aimed at no one. “Then came the storm and they sky was lit like it was the end of days. And I was sick. I remember the coughing and the way my lungs would fail me. I saw my death coming and I said…I said…” she closed her eyes. “I said I would not go.”

“Dani.” Jamie hissed, tugging on Dani’s arm. “Lets just get the kids and go.”

“It will not let you go.” Viola said dreamily without opening her eyes. “It will let you think you’re free, but you’ll be stuck here nevertheless, in an endless circle of your most secret regrets. Your worst nightmares.”

“What can we do, Viola?” Dani asked, stepping closer. 

“There is nothing to be done, foolish girl.” Viola answered shortly with no hint of apology in her voice, snapping from her trance with the same speed as flicking a light switch. “The storm brings the ghosts, and the ghosts take more for the storm.”

“What does that even mean?” Owen threw his hands up. “This makes no sense.”

“No, it does not.” Viola snapped. “It doesn’t need to make sense, you stupid man. We are in hell.”

“We’re not dead!” Owen shouted. Outside, the thunder crackled.

“No?” Viola tilted her head. “I thought I was dead for a long time. Years, when the coughing would keep me awake for days and the spittle would pour forth until I thought I should waste to nothing. But now I think it may have been hours. Minutes. It is hard to tell when the tempest comes.”

Above their heads, something crashed to the floor and rolled across the floorboards. Viola looked at the ceiling with interest. “My sister killed me you know, on that night. She put her hands over my mouth and choked the life from my lungs. So, I waited in the attic, and I throttled her. She made such a racket. I hear it when I try to sleep.”

“Jesus.” Owen moaned, covering his face with both hands. “What the hell is happening.”

“Its hard to remember.” Viola continued, unphased. “It jumbles together. The chest I was hiding in…they took it and threw it into the lake. Or maybe they didn’t. Its hard to work out what was real and what was the dreaming, sometimes. The water was cold, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t…and my daughter…my daughter…” She trailed off. “Where is my child?” 

“I don’t know.” Dani answered truthfully. “I think-“

Footsteps sounded loud against the stairs, louder than the rain still hammering against the windows or the thunder cracking apart the sky. They turned as one, each wearing a matching mask of terror, with the exception of Viola, who regarded the scene with a sneer. “Sister.” She said icily. 

“Oh Christ.” Jamie growled, as the darkness drifting down the stairs merged and condensed into a human figure. “Its back. Dani, come on, we’ve got to go!”

Dani swallowed, unable to tear herself away from the mesmerising glow of Edmund’s dead-man’s glasses, shining through the misty half-formed fog like headlamps. “Jamie…” she murmured helplessly.

Owen didn’t speak. He swallowed with difficulty, blinking quickly, and then he heaved a deep sigh. “Its not real.” He said, sounding sad and resigned and very, very tired. “I know its not real. I keep seeing my mum and she wouldn’t do this to me. She loved me. She wouldn’t want to hurt me like this even if I wasn’t there when…when it happened.”

Jamie and Dani looked at him, frowning. They turned back to the stairs. The ghosts were still there, but as Owen spoke, it was as though some of their shape lost its vibrancy. A sort of fuzziness around the edges that made them look less substantial; more ethereal. “No. Its not real.” Jamie agreed quietly. “But that don’t mean it can’t fuck you up.”

The cloud of dark smoke with its blurring spectres was moving quicker towards them now. Startled, the humans at the bottom turned to run, tripping over their feet and stumbling as they made their way towards the door. Viola hadn’t moved, her blue eyes firmly planted on whatever she was seeing approaching down the stairs. Dani stopped in front of her, pulling back as Jamie tried to tug her towards the door.

“Come with us.” Dani implored. “Come with us, we can get away, we can make it.”

Viola looked at her just once, and a smirk danced across her mouth. “No.” she intoned with finality, her face turning back towards the stairs. “This is my house.”

Outside, the storm was seething, pounding the grass and gravel alike into a muddy quagmire that sucked at their boots and made each step a chore. Through the gloom and against the crackle of the lightening, the glow of candles shone from the small chapel near the lake. Without a better idea, the trio slipped and slid towards it. At their backs, the house was swallowed by a darkness that seemed to seep from the windows and doors, like seawater reclaiming a sinking ship.

“Hannah!” Owen shouted, the wind whipping his words away. “Hannah!” 

“Wait.” Dani hissed, throwing her arms out to stop her friends’ momentum. They looked at her in confusion, and she pointed, brow furrowed, at the chapel. The windows were clouding, fogging up with black steam, and the door was open.

“Its in there.” Jamie gritted out. “Where the fuck is Hannah?”

From behind the building, as though summoned, came a shriek. “That was Flora!” Dani didn’t pause to think before she took off towards the source of the noise.

“Dani, no!” Jamie cried, sprinting after her, Owen at her heels. 

Hannah had both children behind her, their backs to the water made turbulent by the falling rain. They were staring at the church, and Dani saw as she rounded the corner that it wasn’t just Eddie anymore. The shapes being formed, dissolved, and reshaped by the storm seemed to cover all of her fears, all the regrets and painful memories that had touched her young life; her mother was there, wobbling from the drink, and her father, dressed as he had been at his open-casket funeral, with the same waxy gloss to his skin. As Jamie caught up to her, Dani heard her gasp, and recalled what the young woman had said in the attic all those hours before, understanding with sudden clarity the sheer volume of ghosts that Jamie already carried in her chest. 

Behind them came the crunch of feet over the leaves and twigs tossed around by the storm. Dani and Owen didn’t seem to hear, focused on how they would get through the thrashing mess of horror to where Hannah was inching backwards, trying to hold the children to her as the water deepened around them. 

Jamie looked back, and there was the girl. She was watching the adults with mournful green eyes, her thin arms held ramrod straight at her sides. Without thinking, Jamie bent and scooped the child into her arms, holding her close. “Its going to be ok, sweetheart.” She whispered, trying to keep her voice level.

“Give her to me.”

Viola stepped out of the shadows. She looked more human, more alive, than she had in the house. Jamie wondered what she had stayed behind for or why she had followed them now, and with an instinct she didn’t know she possessed, Jamie held the child tighter. “What are you going to do with her?”

Viola smiled, genuine and warm. “I’m going to keep her safe.”

“I don’t believe you.” Jamie took a step back. Dani and Owen were staring now, but Jamie couldn’t tear her gaze from the dead woman approaching with demanding, outstretched arms.

“She belongs with me.” Viola insisted. “My Isabel. My daughter.”

Jamie shook her head. “She isn’t, she isn’t your daughter, she’s-“

“Whatever it wants us to see, Jamie.” Dani said softly, her hand coming to rest lightly on Jamie’s arm. “She isn’t real.”

“Give her to me.” Viola persisted, a note of anger tinting her tone. “She has to be with me.”

From the shore of the lake, sinking into the muddy, ice-cold water up to their knees as they tried to put space between them and the ghosts pouring in from all angles, Hannah and her charges were hollering, their shouts hardly even carrying over the racket of the phantoms screaming their own lament. “Jamie.” Dani said again.

Jamie Taylor looked down at the girl clinging to her, and her own face looked back. There were no photos of that face other than the mugshots stuck to an official file somewhere, dusty and forgotten in some social worker’s filing cabinet, but Jamie recognised it. She could see it in the curly brown hair and the shape of the jaw; could read it written in the freckle that sat just above her eyebrow and the tension that rolled off the small body in tangible waves. But it was an illusion, conjured by whatever had followed the storm in to terrorise the house, and while it was a young, scared Jamie Taylor currently shivering against her chest, it was at the same time Isobel Lloyd, stuck forever at the age she was when Viola died, entombed in memory, and made real again for one night. Jamie swallowed the lump forming in her throat, searching her younger self’s face for some kind of sign.

“Be good, kid.” Jamie sniffed, passing the child into Viola’s embrace. The woman beamed, and without another glance at the people around her, strode forwards into the lake.

“We lay my love and I, beneath the weeping willow…” drifted towards them as Viola waded into the water, the familiar tune seeing eerie in the darkness. “And now alone I lie, and weep beside-“

Silence.

The only sounds were the chirping of birds and the buzzing of a nearby honeybee as it moseyed through the reeds. In the sky, the midday sun shone down, making the air shimmer in the August heat and sending gnats lazily drifting over the fragrant pond scum. The gardens looked as clear and as clean as they had ever been, tended to perfection by Jamie’s iron will and tender hand.

Carefully, forming a chain to ensure there were no mishaps, Hannah led Flora and Miles back up the bank; Dani dropped to her knees, wrapping them both in her arms, kissing the tops of their heads and exclaiming about how brave they had both been. Without pausing long enough to second guess herself, Hannah Grose sank into Owen Sharma’s comforting embrace, breathing in the scent of him and letting it, and the warmth of the day, calm her galloping heart.

Jamie ran a hand through her tangled hair, and with a stuttering hand, reached for a pack of cigarettes. The packet was soaked through. Sighing, glad to have something mundane to feel upset about, she stuffed the mushy cardboard into her jeans. As she did so, something caught her eye, and she peered closer. There, on the floor next to her, was the only sign that things had ever been different: a set of bare footprints in the grass, leading down into the water that then disappeared without a trace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wanting definitive answers to what the hell this was all about, I regret to say that this isn't that sort of story, fam...if you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the comments and I'll do my best to provide an answer.


	8. Chapter 8

“Ms Clayton, I’m hungry.” Flora said, wiping her tears on the back of her pink pyjama top. “Might we have some breakfast?”

From her place crouching on the floor, Dani chuckled with relief, glad that on the surface at least, the horrors they'd experienced had left no apparent marks on the children in her care. “Sure thing.”

All four adults looked at the house. It appeared as it always had, peacefully slumbering away on its tranquil estate, a bastion of old-fashioned values nestled in the rolling chalk hills and waving corn fields of Hampshire. In their minds’ eyes though, they could still see the darkness spilling from its frontage, speeding over the grass, carrying the nightmares with it.

“Tell you what,” Owen said brightly, “how about we all head to mine? Change of scenery might do us good.”

“Can I have boiled egg and soldiers?” Flora asked, after a moment’s consideration. Miles’s ears perked up.

“Boiled egg and soldiers would be nice.” The boy said hopefully.

Owen rolled his eyes playfully. “I think I can manage that.”

“Are you coming?” Hannah turned to where Dani and Jamie were standing, looking utterly done in.

Dani glanced over her shoulder, and Jamie shrugged. “We’ll catch you up.”

Hannah smiled knowingly. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

“Leaves us a bit of wiggle room, then.” Jamie quipped, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it.

As the housekeeper and cook walked away, hand in hand, they could hear Flora and Miles chatting excitedly, seemingly none the worse for the night that had passed before them. Jamie slumped to the floor, throwing her legs out in front of her and groaning loudly. Dani sank next to her, crossing her legs and idly pulling at a dry stem of grass.

“So.” The au pair said.

“So.” Jamie repeated. 

“Quite the night.” 

“It was.” 

Across from them, a dragonfly drifted along the bank, its electric blue body catching in the sunlight. On Dani’s neck, a prickle of sweat began to bead, her body not having acclimatised from the false night of the storm to the shimmering heat of a summer afternoon. Somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.

Dani cleared her throat. “Feels like its later, if you still want to hear the things that I wanted to tell you last night.”

Jamie squinted straight ahead, twirling a plucked dandelion in her long fingers, the seeds falling where they brushed against the denim covering her legs. “Dani,” she said eventually, and the American felt her heart drop at the unavoidable rejection in Jamie's voice, “if last night showed us anything its that we’ve both got some stuff to work through.”

“Oh.” Dani nodded, turning her face away as the ball of tears in her throat threatened to spill out, the tiredness and sorrow and desperation of the last 14 hours crashing against the last of her barricades and overwhelming her.

“Do you want some company?” Dani blinked furiously, swallowing twice before looking over at her companion, who was watching her from the corner of her eyes.

“Jamie?” Dani asked, unsure of what was being asked.

Jamie gave a thin smile. “While we sort through our baggage, do you want some company?”

The gardener held up her pinkie finger, eyebrows raised expectantly. Dani looked at it for a long while before she took it in her own; Jamie exhaled, and brought their clasped hands to her mouth, pressing a lingering kiss to Dani’s soft skin. “Well then.” She said after a moment.

Dani laughed, scrubbing at her face to dry the tears that were still lurking, waiting for their chance to fall. “Where to, now?” she asked, feeling light and hopeful despite the fatigue and bitter residue of fear still coating her insides.

Jamie got to her feet, dusting grass away from her overalls that were still soaked through, an undeniable proof that they hadn’t imagined the events that led them to the shore of the lake at noon, cocooned together by their mutual wants. She held her hand out, and Dani allowed herself to be tugged up. “Well, how about we head to Owen’s because I’m _starving_ , and then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“Anywhere?” Dani asked, stepping closer until their hips bumped together and their breath mingled and caught, her hands running goosepimples up Jamie’s toned arms. 

Jamie grinned the cocky half-smile that made Dani's heart stutter, and she felt a blush colour her cheeks. “Anywhere with you is fine by me, Poppins.”

The kiss was softer than their first, the desperation of the attic turned into fresh hope, and Dani thought that she could spend the rest of her life kissing Jamie Taylor and never get used to the velvet sweetness of her mouth, the way her fingers would tickle idly at Dani’s skin or, as they sank deeper into each other, wrap into her hair, pulling and tugging and begging for more. 

In the sky above where the gardener and the au pair embraced, a single, wispy, white cloud was buffeted by unfelt breezes, and in the house the dust motes drifted on air disturbed by the rushing of children's feet, the prospect of food for their grumbling tummies making them excitable and clumsy as they ran to change their clothes. The housekeeper chased after them with good-natured frustration, not quite ready to let her charges out of her sight yet, and the cook laughed to see them.

At the bottom of the lake, the darkness waited, trapped in the prison created by Viola’s cold, dead arms. One day, it knew, one day she would cease to sleep. She would wake. She would walk.

One day, when the storm returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are! Thank you to everyone for reading, and especially for the people who took the time to kudos and comment - you really are what keeps me going in this game.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this story to my good friend H, my film-buddy, fandom partner-in-crime, and general all round Good Egg. (Never) Stop being weird, Miles!


End file.
